FORESTRY COMMISSIONER 47 



mean permanent injury to persons living hundreds of 

 miles away. A few foreign sheep owners should not be 

 allowed to exterminate great forests at the expense of the 

 whole country; and prospectors and miners should not 

 be permitted to burn, wilfully or carelessly, forests in 

 which all classes of the community are equally interested. 

 ' 'Our examination of the Western forests shows that 

 the existing methods and forces at the disposal of the 

 Interior Department are entirely inadequate to protect 

 the forests of the public domain. Civil employes, often 

 selected for political reasons and retained in office by 

 political favor, insufficiently paid and without security in 

 their tenure of office, have proved unable to cope with the 

 difficulties of forest protection, and the reserves are prac- 

 tically unguarded." 



FOREST ADMINISTRATION. 



"It has been shown that the preservation and judicious 

 management of the forests on those portions of the public 

 domain which are unsuited for agriculture are of great 

 importance for the flow of rivers needed for the irrigation 

 of arid districts, and to furnish forest products for settlers 

 on adjacent arable lands and for mining operations. The 

 cheapness of forest products in the United States, and the 

 length of time required to produce crops of timber in the 

 West, will make the investment of the capital of indi- 

 viduals in silvicultural operations, for the present at least, 

 a doubtful enterprise in those States and Territories where 

 the public domain is now principally situated; and silvi- 

 culture in western North America will only be really suc- 

 cessful under sustained government control and adminis- 

 tration; for, dealing with crops which often, do not reach 

 maturity until the end of one or two centuries, it can only 

 be made profitable by carrying out, without interruption 



