SUEVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 37 



niflcant. Except for the fact that under the present system cutting 

 is followed by fire with almost mathematical certainty, the injury from 

 this source would have been far less important than it is. Nor should 

 the fact be overlooked that a very large part of the timber cut has 

 been used in the development of the country, while the loss from forest 

 fires is wholly without compensation. The fires have done no one any 

 good. 



The time required for the rehabilitation of burned lands may belong 

 when computed from the standpoint of the individual, but it can not 

 be fairly measured in that way. The life of the nation is here con- 

 cerned, and it must furnish the point of view from which alone the 

 periods of time involved in forestry can be justly estimated. Like the 

 growth of a nation, the growth of its forests is continuously produc- 

 tive, but it can not be adequately governed with an eye single to the 

 immediate present. 



THE PLOW OP STREAMS. 



In addition to the clear necessity for protecting the reserves for the 

 sake of their present and future productive value, great interests, de- 

 pendent upon the flow of streams, demand the conservation of their 

 mountain forests. Such forests have a double function with relation to 

 water supply. They tend, on the one hand, to maintain the flow of 

 water in the streams during the period when it is most needed for irri- 

 gation and most apt to fail. On the other hand, no other agency is so 

 powerful for the prevention of destructive floods in regions liable to 

 the enormous damage which they often cause. This Junction of the 

 mountain forests in the northern portion of the Pacific slope has hith- 

 erto been overlooked, and criticisms of certain of the reserves have 

 been based on the statement that there is already too much water in 

 the streams whose head waters they embrace. No better reason for the 

 existence of these reserves could have been adduced. 



MINERAL LANDS. 



Beside lands valuable for forest purposes alone, certain of the reserves 

 contain considerable areas more or less rich in valuable minerals. 

 Under the present law and the regulations framed to give it effect, 

 mining within the reserves is at no disadvantage as compared with 

 mining on unreserved public lands. Prospecting is unrestricted, and 

 the development of mineral resources is on the same basis within and 

 without the reserves. Not only is this true, but there is in addition 

 strong evidence to show that mining interests are more fully protected 

 in the reserves than outside, and that the recognition of this fact has 

 made rapid progress among those most deeply interested. In those 

 cases, however, where restricted areas support a comparatively dense 

 population occupied in mining, it would be wisest, from the point of 

 view of practical administration, to exclude them from the reserves, 

 although it does not appear that such communities would suffer in any 

 way did they remain within the boundaries. 



AGRICULTURAL LANDS. 



The lines of some of the reserves, as originally laid down, embrace 

 considerable areas of agricultural land. Although the total extent of 

 these areas will be very much reduced by the rectification of boundaries 

 now in preparation, no general readjustment of the lines will suffice to 



