Two Great Undertakings 



647 



The sales of forest-reserve timber to 

 settlers, miners, lumbermen, and other 

 users are increasing very rapidly, and in 

 that way also the reserves are success- 

 fully meeting a growing need. 



Lands in the forest reserves that are 

 more valuable for agriculture than for 

 forest purposes are being opened to set- 

 tlement and entry as fast as their agricul- 

 tural character can be ascertained. There 

 is therefore no longer excuse for saying 

 that the reserves retard the legitimate set- 

 tlement and development of the country. 

 On the contrary, they promote and sus- 

 tain that development, and they will do 

 so in no way more powerfully than 

 through their direct contributions to the 

 schools and roads. Ten per cent, of all 

 the money received from the forest re- 

 serves goes to the States for the use of 

 the counties in which the reserves lie, to 

 be used for schools and roads. The 

 amount of this contribution is nearly 

 $70,000 for the first year. It will grow 

 steadily larger, and will form a certain 

 and permanent source of income, which 

 would not have been the case with the 

 taxes whose place it takes. 



Finally, a body of intelligent, practical, 

 well-trained men, citizens of the West, is 

 being built up — men in whose hands the 

 public interests, including your own, are 

 and will be safe. 



All these results are good ; but they 

 have not been achieved by the Forest 

 Service alone. On the contrary, they 

 represent also the needs and suggestions 

 of the people of the whole West. They 

 embody constant changes and adjust- 

 ments to meet these suggestions and 



needs. The forest policy of the Govern- 

 ment in the West has now become what 

 the West desired it to be. It is a national 

 policy — wider than the boundaries of any 

 State, and larger than the interests of any 

 single industry. Of course it can not 

 give any set of men exactly what they 

 would choose. Undoubtedly the irrigator 

 would often like to have less stock on his 

 watersheds, while the stockman wants 

 more. The lumberman would like to cut 

 more timber, the settler and the miner 

 would often like him to cut less. The 

 county authorities want to see more 

 money coming in for schools and roads, 

 while the lumberman and stockman ob- 

 ject to the rise in value of timber and 

 grass. But the interests of the people as 

 a whole are, I repeat, safe in the hands 

 of the Forest Service. 



By keeping the public forests in the 

 public hands our forest policy substitutes 

 the good of the whole people for the 

 profits of the privileged few. With that 

 result none will quarrel except the men 

 who are losing the chance of personal 

 profit at the public expense. 



Our western forest policy is based upon 

 meeting the wishes of the best public 

 sentiment of the whole West. It pro- 

 poses to create new reserves wherever 

 forest lands still vacant are found in the 

 public domain, and to give the reserves 

 already made the highest possible useful- 

 ness to all the people. So far our prom- 

 ises to the people in regard to it have all 

 been made good; and I have faith that 

 this policy will be carried to successful 

 completion, because I believe that the 

 people of the West are behind it. 



THE HIGHEST CAMP IN THE WORLD 



MR. HARRINGTON PUTNAM, of 

 New York, sends the following 

 extract from a letter from Mrs Fanny 

 Bullock Workman, who has been making 

 souk- marvelous mountain ascents in the 

 Himalayas : 



"\\ e have just finished a journey to the 

 Nun Kun range, southwest of Ladakh, 

 with six Italian porters and the guide, 



C. Savage, of Courmayeur. He was with 

 us in 1903 and refused the offers of the 

 Duke for Rumenzori, to go with me. It 

 was my expedition, Dr Workman only 

 deciding to go as my guest at the last 

 moment. We made the first circuit of 

 the range, 90 to 100 miles, over 40 miles 

 of glaciers never before visited. I with 

 Savage and one porter ascended one of 

 the three highest Nun Kun peaks — sur- 

 vey measurement, 23,260 feet — and thus 



