CHAPTER XII. 71 



from human use is necessary. Under a proper and intelligent forest 

 system, the integrity of the watersheds can be safely maintained, and 

 yet plenty of use can be found for both land and products; uses that 

 can go en without fatal results to the forested area. 



It is only in the extreme Southwestern mountains that the condi- 

 tions are such as to counter-indicate the cutting of any timber, or 

 even fire-wood, in the mountains. But even there mining,' resorts, power 

 companies, and irrigation works can be established with no disad- 

 vantage to the trees or chaparral, but rather to their increased safety. 

 The nation can gain by preserving its forests in safe proportion, and 

 can in no way consent to see this proportion of safety to its people 

 diminished. The nation will gain by forest preservation, even though 

 the system be without any resources or power of self-sustenance. 



While forestry has become a living issue in the Atlantic States, 

 through the depletion of perennial flow of springs and streams and 

 increased flood action, and probably by greater and increasingly in- 

 jurious extremes of frost and heat arising from forest destruction, in 

 the West and Southwest effective forestry is a question of life or 

 death. 



With irrigated districts, jiresent or prospective, the conservation 

 of the Forest Natural Reservoirs Is at least as important as the con- 

 servation of any part of the rainfall by artiflcial storage, diversion or 

 distributing systems. 



FEDERAL MANAGEMENT REQUIRED. 

 The lands on the mountains and watersheds in this part of the 

 United States are in large part Federal public lands. By the ex- 

 tensive reservation of forested mountain lands from sale or settlement, 

 the Federal government has committed itself to a rational forest 

 system. What the situation demands, and what the people desire, is a 

 forest management of these important mountain watersheds that will 

 Eorve the highest interests of the entire community. Interests built 

 up under the neglects and waste and abuses of the government's 

 forestal mistakes and laches should be treated with all the consideration 

 the safety of the communities affected and the welfare of the great 

 majority of the people permit. 



All foresters, and especially all foresters in the Southwest, endorse 

 and must endorse a Federal forestry policy, whether the forest man- 

 agement pays its way or not. 



The government forestry systems of European nations, of Canada, 



