78 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



the results of six months of labor on December ist; its formal 

 report is due to the President January i, 1909. It is made up 

 of some of the best known names in the Government scientific 

 service, in public life, and in the various industrial fields. The 

 lines along which the Commission has worked are those laid 

 down at the May Conference, and such an active educational 

 discussion has resulted in the pubHc prints that every one now 

 recognizes the natural division of our resources into two groups — 

 one containing oils, coal, our various metals, which may become 

 exhausted in their natural state, some of them, indeed, totally 

 exhausted ; the other group comprising soils, forests, and streams 

 to be used for water-supplies, power, and navigation, which are 

 capable of perennial renewal and continuance. A most im- 

 portant conception in the public mind is that the resources in the 

 latter group are interdependent, and that back of the normal 

 conservation of the soils of arable lands, and of the streams and 

 of river navigation, stands a normal condition of the forests. 

 The work of President Roosevelt in advancing the practical work 

 of land reclamation and forest conservation (rather than preser- 

 vation), and, finally, his leading the whole nation to take stock 

 of their entire resources and provide if possible against their 

 unnecessary waste and exhaustion, would of itself be enough to 

 place him among the world's greatest statesmen; and beside him 

 Gifford Pinchot looms very large as a benefactor of America. 



The Commission held a conference with the Governors of 

 States at Washington December 8th-ioth, Mr. Pinchot pre- 

 siding. More than thirty Governors signed a report approving 

 the principle of co-operation among the States and between the 

 States and the Federal Government in the conservation of the 

 country's natural resources. Summarized reports on the inves- 

 tigations made by the different sections of the Commission were 

 given out. Senator Flint of California is chairman of the 

 mineral section. "The mineral production of the United States 

 now exceeds $2,000,000,000 in value every year, and is second only 

 to agriculture as a contribution to our national wealth. The 

 waste in the mining and treatment of mineral substances during 

 the year is equivalent to more than $300,000,000." The report 

 on forestry says in part: — 



"Forestry is practiced on 70 per cent of the forests publicly 

 owned and on less than one per cent of the forests privately 

 owned, or on only 18 per cent of the total forest area. We take 

 yearly, including waste in logging and in manufacture, twenty- 

 three billion cubic feet of wood from our forests. Under right 

 management our forests will yield more than four times as much 

 as now. We can reduce waste in the woods and in the mill at 

 least one third, with present as well as future profit. We can 

 perpetuate the naval stores industry. Preservative treatment will 



