PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 71 
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION FAVORABLE TO FORESTRY. 
Able statesmen have at various times made such laws as, it was thought. 
would encourage the preservation of some of our forests, and provide for the 
planting and care of forest growths on the semi-arid lands of the West, but 
from various causes they have been of little practical utility. , 
Thousands of homesteads have been taken in the Northwestern Timbered 
States, on lands of no value whatever for agricultural purposes, destroying 
wantonly millions of feet of valuable timber in order to secure homesteads 
where they should have been timber reservations, or the land sold for its 
value as timbered lands. 
This has been done to fulfill a positive requirement of the Homestead 
Act, that a certain area should be cleared and cultivated before a title could 
be obtained, and by making oath and proof that these heavily timbered lands 
were of greater value for farm purposes than for timber. The Act gave the 
preference to the homesteads. Notwithstanding the immense value of the 
timber destroyed to make a few acres of farm land. 
All heavily timbered tracts should be withdrawn from Sale for Home- 
steads, and either held as forest reservations by the Government, and the 
trees sold from time to time as they are demanded, or sold outright as timber 
lands at prices corresponding with the real value of the lumber. 
In all probability, if the Government would retain the title to timber 
lands, in mountain regions, and sell at stated times, the trees of a 
certain given size, with the requirements that young growths should be pre- 
served, and the prices fixed according to measurement of the stumps, a far 
greater sum would be derived from the timber than as by the present method, 
and instead of such terrible waste as has heretofore been practiced a continuous 
supply of lumber and timber would be provided for posterity. 
The timber Act, granting lands to those who would plant and cultivate 
timber trees, was fatally defective. It was not taken into consideration that 
a great majority of those who were willing to take such lands and plant 
timber, were very poor men, unable to carry out the intention of the Act, 
without practical assistance from the Nation. No provisions were made for 
supplying seeds of valuable trees, young seedlings, or other plants. The 
result is that a few cottonwood groves are about all that can be found. 
The Government should provide an abundant supply of seeds, cuttings, 
and young plants of the more valuable forest trees, and distribute them 
