
21 
The wholesale destruction of public timber on odd sections of public lands within 
the granted limits of unconstructed railroads, or of roads which failed to comply with 
the provisions of their grants, continues to an alarming extent. The delay of Con- 
gress in declaring the forfeiture of said grants is, in this particular alone, of great 
detriment to the public interests. Irresponsible parties are rapidly denuding such 
lands of their valuable timber, rendering the lands, in many instances, barren wastes 
and utterly worthless. 
To secure proper enforcement of the laws and punish willful and persistent viola- 
tors a force of at least fifty special timber agents, at an annual expense of $150,000, 
ought to be employed. I have, iiowever, estimated for $125,000 as a minimum, below 
which a reasonable efficiency in the service can not be obtained. Vastly more can be 
accomplished in one year with a sufficient appropriation than can be accomplished in 
several years with smaller annual appropriations aggregating a larger sum. 
The area of timbered lands in the United States is disappearing at a ratio that ex- 
cites grave apprehension, while timbered agricultural lands in the public States and 
Territories generally may be regarded as practically exhausted. The necessity for 
clearing land of its timber preliminary to making a farm is exceptional. It is want 
of timber and not its surplusage that afflicts settlers on the public domain. The 
struggle to accumulate great private fortunes from the forests of the country has re- 
duced forest areas toa minimum. What is left at the heads of rivers and streams and 
on mountain sides should be preserved as of infinite importance and value for climatic 
effect, the natural regulation of the flow of waters, and to prevent the relapse of large 
agricultural districts to a desert condition. 
When timber had to be cut and burned as a necessity in clearing land for cultiva- 
tion there was no cause for increasing the price of land because there was timber upon 
it. This is not the present situation. The remaining timber lands, as a rule, are 
worth little or nothing except for the timber, and their value for timber is being rap- 
idly enhanced as transportation facilities increase and timber areas decrease. 
The appropriation of $75,000 for the prevention of depredations on the public tim- 
ber is TOTALLY INADEQUATE. ‘The vast fields to be covered, stretching from Florida 
to Alaska, can not be supervised by twenty-five special agents, nor can the determined 
efforts of timber depredators, many of them corporations with millions of dollars at 
their command, to despoil the forests of the country, be met by puny attempts to check 
their unlawful and disastrous acts. The service is more than self-supporting, and 
draws no money from the Treasury that is not more than returned to it by fines and 
recoveries. It is no part of an intelligent or defensible policy to make timber depre- 
dations a source of revenue. The object to be attained is to save the forest lands from 
unlawful destruction, and if this can be accomplished by appropriating the whole of 
the receipts derived from trespass prosecutions there should be no hesitancy in allow- 
ing the administrative department the aid, at least, of the amount it recovers. My 
estimate for the next fiscal year is $100,000 for this purpose, a modicum only, I must 
say, of the amount that could be beneficially and profitably expended. 
Three years ago my predecessor recommended an appropriation of $400,000 to pro- 
tect the public lands from unlawful and fraudulent appropriation. Since that period 
the need of such protection has increased with the intensified demand for public land 
holdings for monopolistic and speculative purposes. Yet Congress at the last session 
allowed but one-fourth of the sum regarded as requisite under the preceding adminis- 
tration of the Government. 
Both Congress and the Executive, not less than political parties, annually assert an 
intention that the public lands shall be preserved for actual settlement. No public 
demand is greater than that land monopoly shall not be fostered by the Government. 
Yet at the vital point where these words are to be put into action, Congress fails to 
place in the hands of the executive branch the means to redeem these public promises 
and to prevent the indiscriminate waste and misappropriation which has for years 
dishonored the public-land system, and through which great areas of lands needed for 
actual settlement pass into the hands of speculators, syndicates, and corporations. 
