GOVERNMENT FOREST WORK. 9 



come practically self-supporting. Yet the sales of 

 timber have hitherto been salvaging operations or 

 improvement cuttings rather than actual harvesting 

 of what the forests annually grow, for the lands had 

 been depleted by lumbering and fires while in private 

 ownership. Under the practice of forestry the stands 

 of timber are increasing, at the same time that the 

 protective value of the cover as a regulator of steam- 

 flow is materially improved. From an industrial 

 standpoint, these eastern National Forests will play 

 an important part as permanent sources of supply of 

 material, particularly hardwoods for local establish- 

 ments, and will appreciably lessen the acuteness of 

 the timber shortage in the East as the supplies of 

 virgin timber approach the vanishing point and before 

 the general practice of forestry on private lands has 

 been under way long enough to supply timber of com- 

 mercial size. 



The Forests for Use. 



The policy under which the National Forests are 

 administered by the Department of Agriculture 

 through the Forest Service is to make them of the 

 most use to the most people, but especially to the man 

 of small means and the local farmer and settler. 

 They were meant, first of all, to enable the people to 

 build homes and to maintain them. This policy was 

 laid down by the Secretary of Agriculture in a letter 

 to the Forester, dated February 1, 1905, in which he 

 said: 



In the administration of the forest reserves it must 

 be clearly borne in mind that all land is to be devoted 

 to its most productive use for the permanent good of 

 the whole people and not for the temporary benefit of 

 individuals or companies. All the resources of the 

 forest reserves are for use, and this must be brought 



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