14 
of stability in our population, can more than a temporary or an ephem- 
eral interest attach to forest property for the individual. 
It is not the forest that is valuable and would appear worth his pro- 
tection to the individual, but the timber which the forest yields. As 
soon as that is gone the aie and the interest is gone for the individual. 
The interest which the community has in the forest is transcendant. 
The continuation, reproduction, and protection of the forest cover is of 
importance to the continued welfare of the community, especially in 
the mountain forests, and they will therefore be in safer hands with the 
community at large, with the state. 
Let it not be overlooked that the state is not only the representative 
of communal interests as against individual interests, but also of future 
interests as against the present; that the forest is a kind of trust, of 
which the usufruct belongs to the present, and that to draw upon its 
capital is a perversion of the trust and can only be excused by direst 
necessity. Every other civilized country has found out after severe pun- 
ishment that private interest is not sufficient to protect this class of 
lands; that state ownership or, what is more objectionable and less 
effective, state supervision of private forest lands, is indispensable in 
those regions where the forest subserves other functions than that of 
mere material supply. 
Whether or not interference of the state in the management of one of 
the most potent factors of national welfare is un-American has been 
fully discussed in the paper contributed by Prof. E. J. James, well 
known as a writer on economic subjects. . 
The report of Colonel Ensign, thefacts for which were gathered under 
many difficulties for lack of more liberal funds than could be allowed 
for this work, will present a clear_and tolerably exhaustive picture of 
the present conditions (1887) of the region in its economic development 
and other aspects, so far as they bear upon the consideration of our ques- 
tion and of the forest areas as distributed through its different parts. 
It was impossible to include in this investigation the Territory of 
Utah, and aithough the writer of this, at his own expense, visited the 
Territory and obtained considerable information which would show that, 
if anything, the forest interests of Utah are in a more precarious con- 
dition than those of the other parts of the region, this information was 
not deemed complete enough to appear as a separate chapter. A short 
résumé, however, has been appended to the report of Colonel Ensign. 
The map accompanying this report was compiled from the returns 
which appear under the description of forest conditions by counties. 
It of course makes no pretense at exactness as to boundaries, but simply 
gives to the eye an idea of the relative position of wooded areas and of 
the principal irrigation ditches. 
The question of what constitutes timber land is a perplexing one. As 
one or other view predominates, it denotes land. stocked with trees 
ready for the saw-mill or merely land upon which there is a wood 


