[9] 



Interest, that is supposedly sacrificed to the greater communal interest. 

 The poor man who has taken up a homestead in the woods — not to make 

 a home, but to speculate with the timber on the 160 acres — feels injured 

 because his speculation may not pan out; the sheep herder feels injured be- 

 cause he loses the free range to which he had hardly any right before, and 

 which he did his best to destroy by his reckless manner of using it; a third 

 class is formed by those who consider the reservation policy one imposed 

 upon western communities by eastern cranks, ignorant of western condi- 

 tions. These are to be pitied for their lack of perception that this is one 

 country with one interest, knowing no east and no west." In this, Mr. 

 Fernow charges bad faith and low motives to the "poor man;'' selfish, 

 reckless incendiarism against the sheep herder, and narrow, sectional jeal- 

 ousy against those who oppose the reserve policy. This is " one country," 

 but there are supposed to be about seventy millions of personal interests 

 covered by its constitution. There are some forty community interests leg- 

 ally formed, which should not be lightly infringed. The citizenship of the 

 fourteen states and territories which have large amounts of public lands 

 within their bounds, and of which they have heretofore been deemed the 

 local guardians under the terms of their admission to the union, preserves 

 a full average share of pride in the fact that this is a government " of the 

 people, by the people, and for the people," which secures to the poorest cit- 

 izen the ownership of himself, and may be said to invite him, by the home- 

 stead law, to the ownership of a home. As one of these, the writer claims 

 the right to be heard in regard to this reserve policy, as it bears upon the 

 interests and seems to threaten the liberities of citizens of Oregon, for rea- 

 sons believed to be erroneously based. 



With due respect for the members of the Forestry Association and the 

 committee it secured to aid its objects, so far as these are to cultivate a 

 public spirit to foster silvia culture where it is needed and to disseminate 

 information to that end, I yet must (from more than fifty years acquaintance 

 with conditions in Oregon, half of which has been such as to make me 

 familiar with the natural phenomena of the Cascade mountains and the 

 efiect of man's usage upon them ) dissent almost in toto from the assump- 

 tions of the committee and the derogatory charges made against sheep, 

 their herders or their owners. I owe to the nation to stand for the truth 

 on this subject in all its phases, general as to forests and conservation of 

 water supply, and particular as to sheep husbandry and its influence upon 

 the growth of conifers ( the only forest trees of the Cascade range and in- 

 terior mountains involved in this policy, except a little cottonwood and 

 aspen.) 



For two years prior to March 15, 1893, I was in the employ oif the 

 United States department of agriculture, to examine and report upon the 

 conditions of sheep husbandry in the states of CaUfornia, Oregon and 



