FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 57 



business reason why the Commission should not have this authority. To 

 exchange or sell these lands would be to do that which any prudent man 

 would do with his own property under like conditions. 



" Forests, if rightly used and managed, perform for the people certain 

 definite and important offices. The more important ones may be enumer- 

 ated as follows: 



" They constitute a home and breeding place for -game animals and 

 birds; they protect the source of water supply and regulate, to a great 

 extent, the continued and even flow of water. By protecting the water 

 supply, fish life is sustained, pure water is insured, the soil better irrigated 

 and made more productive. Woods help to regulate the temperature, 

 and, it is believed, have an appreciable effect in increasing rainfall in cer- 

 tain localities. They act as windbreaks; they add oxygen to the air and 

 purify it. One of their most important offices is to furnish wood for all 

 the thousands of purposes for which wood is used. For the health and 

 enjoyment of man they form the most complete panacea for human ills 

 and the most perfect place for recreation known. They are nature's great 

 sanitariums. These are some of their principal offices. For these purposes 

 our forests should be managed and used. If we fail to use them for all 

 these things, a loss to the people follows. If we fail to preserve them, 

 according to history in such cases, disaster follows. In our case, both 

 future and present generations would bear the loss, but the present 

 would be disgraced. The State now has nearly 1,700,000 acres of 

 woodland. How are we using it? The question is easily answered. We are 

 using it better than ever before, because we are protecting it from man's 

 rapacity. 



"As a whole people we are not using our preserves at all. Compara- 

 tively few people, under present conditions, can afford to use them. If 

 the Constitution was literally enforced no one could cut a stick of wood for 

 a camp fire; no one could cut a stick on which to hang a camp kettle. In 

 many long reaches of the forest there would be no place where shelter could 

 be found. A tent could not be staked down unless the stakes were carried 

 in from other lands. The Constitution, with all good intentions of its 

 builders, with all the needs at the time for a restrictive provision in this 

 respect, established a park and forest preserve for the people, built it round 



