nuding our forests. In this way only can past errors be 

 avoided and a comprehensive plan be worked out to protect 

 the future. 



The conditions of ownership of our forests have made 

 the problems and possibilities of successful treatment and 

 economical and satisfactory handling a much more difficult 

 and complicated matter to consider than that which pre- 

 vailed before the title to timberland was, to so great an 

 extent, transferred to private ownership. 



So far as the forestry questions relate to hardwood tim- 

 berland, which was mostly agricultural, the conveyance of 

 title, largely as a free gift under the Homestead Act was 

 not only justifiable, but a necessary policy to pursue. While 

 it resulted in the destruction and waste of a large propor- 

 tion of the hardwood timber, it cleared the land and laid 

 the foundation for. the great National progress and the pros- 

 perous conditions now existing. 



The policy of distributing the pine timberlands as a gift 

 or at a nominal price to the multitude of people or citizens 

 who chose to secure a tract for the advantages of the specu- 

 lative value, was not a wise or justifiable policy. It accom- 

 plished the purpose of a somewhat public distribution, but 

 it reached only to a certain class who were so situated that 

 they could profit and benefit themselves by using time and 

 expense in finding and taking up claims. It did not extend 

 the benefit to the public generally, most of whom were not 

 so situated as to be able to take advantage of the opportunity 

 ofiFered. But as this present timber and stone act has been 

 preceded by yet more liberal laws, by which distribution of 

 the timberlands was made from the earliest times and ap- 

 plied to all the forests from the Eastern States all across to 

 the remaining Western States, the Western people naturally 

 consider that the same right and privilege should be con- 

 tinued with them, and there is so little left unreserved or 



