26 THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRy, 



OF THE EXTENT OF RESERVES^ AND THE RELATION OF THEIR AREA TO THE 

 TOTAL AREA OF THE COUNTIES IN WHICH THEY WILL BE LOCATED. 



The map, and the figures quoted also show that, by taking over as 

 reserves all the land that is available, no county in the State will be 

 overloaded with forest land. The figures we have quoted show that 

 there are only fourteen counties in the State in which the quantity of 

 forfeited tax land is as much as six per cent, of the area of the county, 

 and only two counties in which it exceeds twenty per cent., and that the 

 highest percentage -is reached in one county having twenty-seven per 

 cent. It is clearly not necessary that a single acre of this land be taken 

 up for settlement in order to save any county from becoming perma- 

 nently a wilderness, or from having more land in forests than is wise 

 and conservative, or than will preserve a proper and advantageous bal- 

 ance between woodland and tilled fields. Moreover, the map shows that 

 it will not be possible in any county to utilize all the State's holdings 

 of forfeited tax land for State reserves. Consequently the percentage of 

 the area of any county that is really involved is much less than that 

 shown by the foregoing figures. 



But it is not wise, in our judgment, to rest the matter entirely upon 

 the facts disclosed by the figures we have quoted. In the last analysis 

 the working out of a policy, such as it is the duty of this Commission 

 to formulate, must depend upon success in solving the fire problem ; and 

 it seems clear to us that there is nothing of quite so controlling im- 

 portance in reference to this fire problem, as to secure locally, among 

 the residents of the regions most directly affected, a sentiment favorable 

 to the results which such a policy has in view as its final purpose. Where 

 it is the common thought of the community that the forestry movement 

 is an enemy of the neighborhood, and that young forest growth not yet 

 having merchantable size is valueless; where carelessness, and even wil- 

 ful intention, in starting fire to run through young forest growth, is, 

 even if distinctly forbidden by law, condoned and the law treated merely as 

 a notion of theorists or of cranks; it is evident that the more settlers 

 who come in with these ideas, the more wilLthe difflculties and the ex- 

 pense of fire protection grow. Conversely, if such local sentiment be 

 replaced by an attitude of friendliness toward the forestry movement, 

 and by a just estimate of the value of young forest growth, the coming 

 of more settlei^ will decrease the difflculties and the expense of the 

 State in relation to the fire problem. 



Moreover, there is nothing that will contribute so much to make pos- 

 sible the adoption of a rational and satisfactory State policy as to re- 

 move the opposition of the residents of the counties in which the cut- 

 over lands chiefly abound. It is a well-known fact that the only real 

 opposition to forestry that has shown itself in the open, claiming to be 

 based on defensible public grounds, has heretofore come from counties 

 like Eoscommon and Crawford; and this opposition has been largely 

 based upon the claim that the forestry movement in this State is work- 

 ing for ends that will result, in the conversion of these and like coun- 

 ties into permanent woods, to the exclusion of legitimate and desirable 

 settlement. As such is not in fact the intention of the movement, and 

 as the facts shown by the figures already 'quoted demonstrate that such 

 a result is in fact impossible ; it seems the part of wisdom to make such 



