38 
Our only hope is to save what forests we have still in the public pos- 
session, So far as they are necessary to the prosperity of the country, 
by not ethane them to be cut except under such conditions as will 
keep the forests in good condition; to encotrage tree-planting and 
forest-planting on the part of eaecaaees corporations, and communi- 
ties; and above all, as forming the condition on which the rest will be 
of any avail, to insist that the States shall undertake the systematic 
cultivation of forests in those places where 1t may be necessary to pre- 
serve our streams and.climate. 
Some one may ask where the Government is to get the authority for 
this purpose. In the case of the Federal Government, the answer is 
easy. It still owns millions of acres of forest lands, which should in- 
stantly be withdrawn from entry and subjected to a searching examina- 
tion, by experts, as to its character, reserving permanently to the Gov- 
ernment those portions which are of fundamental importance to the 
climate, soil, and streams. In the case of the States much of the very 
land needed falls into their possession for non-payment oftaxes. Let 
the States keep it. Much of the land needed can be obtained at pri- 
vate sale for a mere song. Let the States buy it. More, if necessary, 
can be obtained by the exercise of the right of eminent domain—let 
the States take it. Shall we allow a railway to take land, no matter : 
how insignificant the line it proposes to construct or how few people it 
will benefit, and refuse to the States the right to take land for such a 
purpose as this, on which hangs the welfare of our whole people? 
In all this we ask nothing more than that the State shall do for for- 
estry what it has already done for mining, agriculture, trade, and 
transportation, and we ask it not so much in the interest of forestry 
itself as a separate branch of industry as in the interest of other indus- 
tries whose prosperity depends on the continued existence of forests. 
It will be noticed that in the preceding discussion we have not at- 
tempted to distinguish particularly between what the National Govern- 
ment and the various State governments should do, but have indicated 
rather what they should ali do, taken as a whole. The particular part 
which each should do follows almost as a matter of course from a study 
of the relations of the different parts of our governmental system. Some 
of the things we have mentioned, most of them, perhaps, should be done 
by the States individually. But the Federal Government should cer- 
tainly go on with the work it has begun in connection with the mee 
ment of Agricuiture at Washington. 
It should continue the work of acquiring and disseminating informa- 
tion, and for this purpose should establish experimental forests in ditf- 
ferent parts of the country, which should be well equipped and placed 
under the most skillful direction. It should certainly place a check on 
the exploitation of forests on Government lands, and withdraw what 
remains of our national timber lands from the clutch of the devastators 
aud insist on some regard being paid to general interests by those who 

