DISCUSSION : FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 339 
servation, that the issue of their labors should be a standardization of mr. North. 
what ought to be main arteries for the exchange of products to ‘the 
economic depths of the smaller subsidiary streams. So that there will 
be no substantial reduction in the average of our total freight rates: 
that production may not be encouraged and the wealth of our lower 
Atlantic Coast and of the Mississippi Valley may not be unduly 
increased as the wealth along the Great Lakes has been. 
The extension of our manufacturing interests, which in 1905 paid 
out in salaries and wages $3 186310754 and produced values of 
$14 802 147087, as well as the enlargement of the area of cheap 
freightage, is threatened by this conservation plan. It is understood 
that the Central Government proposes to seize all sources of water- 
power and put them under bureaucratic control. This control may be 
relied upon to hold the value of these natural resources so near a 
prohibitive price and to hamper their use by vexatious restrictions in 
such a way as to retard unnaturally their development. All the em- 
ployees of this branch also are likely to be auxiliary to Government 
by executive decree. 
The development of water-powers, and particularly of our timber 
supply, without control by the Central Government, would free the 
country from the danger to be apprehended, under our elective system, 
of large bodies of Government employees who could be made to act 
with nearly as much unanimity as a regiment of soldiers. The in- 
dividual growers of timber, with their employees, could not be induced 
to act together. The lands selected would be chosen on economic 
grounds, without taint of political corruption or even political influence. 
They would be widely disseminated, mostly on the broken ground 
heading all our streams that do not originate in swamps, and the un- 
disputed cooling-effect of groves would break up the ascending currents 
from highly heated areas which dissipate possible rain clouds. The lum- 
ber they furnish would be in proximity to the demand, while the waste 
products of scattered groves would have a local use and value probably 
more than offsetting the economies of manufacture in large establish- 
ments. In both cases, the areas devoted to tree growing would not con- 
tribute directly to local taxation; but, in the case of woodlands culti- 
vated by individual initiative, a careful selection would be made of 
the less productive and less easily tilled areas. Our proposed National 
forests, on the contrary, would include in their large areas all those 
fertile spots that support farmers, and cover the land with men increas- 
ingly trained to look to the Government for their means of support. 
This entire scheme of Conservation of National Resources seems to 
be on a parity with the present demagogic demand that no more rail- 
roads should be built lest there should be ruinous competition, coupled 
with the claim that the return on the capital invested in railroads 
should be carefully limited through the supervision of our Central 
