Sept. 8, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
37 1 
The Forest Service. 
In his message read at the Irrigation Con¬ 
gress held at Boise, Idaho, Sept. 3 to 8, Presi¬ 
dent Roosevelt wrote of the Forest Service: 
“The forest policy of the Administration, 
which the Forest Service is engaged in carrying 
out, is based, as I have often said, on the 
vigorous purpose to make every resource of the 
forest reserves contribute in the highest degree 
to the permanent prosperity of the people who 
depend upon them. If ever the time should come 
when the western forests are destroyed, there 
will disappear with them the prosperity of the 
stockman, the miner, the lumberman, and the 
railroads, and, most important of all. the small 
ranchman who cultivates his own land. I know 
that you are with me in the intention to pre- 
Photo by H. H. Dunn. 
serve the timber, the water, and the grass by 
using them fully, but .wisely and conservatively. 
We propose to do this through the freest and 
most cordial co-operation between the Govern¬ 
ment and every man who is in sympathy with 
this policy, the wisdom of which no man who 
knows the facts can for a moment doubt. 
“It is now less than two years since the Forest 
Service was established. It had a great task 
before it—to create or reorganize the Service on 
a hundred forest reserves and to ascertain and 
meet the very different local conditions and 
local needs all over the West. This task is not 
finished, and of course it could not have been 
finished in so short a time. But the work has 
been carried forward with energy and intelli¬ 
gence, and enough has been done to show how 
our forest policy is working out. 
“The result of first importance to you as 
irrigators is this: The Forest Service has 
proved that forest fires can be controlled, by 
controlling them. Only one-tenth of 1 per cent, 
of the area of the forest reserves was burned 
over in 1905. This achievement was due both 
to the Forest Service and to the effective as¬ 
sistance of settlers and others in and near the 
reserves. Everything the Government has ever 
spent upon its forest work is a small price to 
pay for the knowledge that the streams which 
make your prosperity can be and are being 
freed from the ever-present threat of forest fires. 
“The long-standing and formerly bitter dif¬ 
ferences between the stockmen and the forest 
officers are nearly all settled. Those which remain 
are in process of settlement. 
“Lands in the forest reserves that are more 
valuable for argriculture than for forest pur¬ 
poses are being opened to settlement and entry 
as fast as their agricultural character can be 
ascertained. There is therefore no longer ex¬ 
cuse for saying that the reserves retard the 
legitimate settlement and development of the 
country. On the contrary, they promote and 
sustain that development, and they will do so 
in no way more powerfully than through their 
direct contributions to the schools and roads. 
Ten per cent, of all the money received from the 
forest reserves goes to the States for the use of 
the counties in which the reserves lie, to be used 
for schools and roads. The amount of this 
contribution is nearly $70,000 for the first year. 
It will grow steadily larger, and will form a cer¬ 
tain and permanent source of income, which 
OCELOT STALKING MOUNTED PARROT. 
would not have been the case with the taxes 
whose place it takes. 
“Finally, a body of intelligent, practical, well- 
trained men, citizens of the West, is being built 
up—men in whose hands the public interests, 
including your own, are and will b^ safe. 
“All these results are good; but they have not 
been achieved by the Forest Service alone. On 
the contrary, they represent also the needs and 
suggestions of the people of the whole West. 
They embody constant changes and adjustments 
to meet these suggestions and needs. The forest 
policy of the Government in the West has now 
become what the West desired it to be. It is a 
National policy—wider than the boundaries of 
any State, and larger than the interests of any 
single industry. 
“By keeping the public forests in the public 
hands our forest policy substitutes the good of 
the whole people for the profits of the privi¬ 
leged few. With that result none will quarrel 
except the men who are losing the chance of 
personal profit at the public expense. 
“Our western forest policy is based upon 
meeting the wishes of the best sentiment of the 
whole West. It proposes to create new re¬ 
serves wherever forest lands still vacant are 
found in the public domain, and to give the re¬ 
serves already made the highest possible useful¬ 
ness to all the people. So far our promises to the 
people in regard to it have all been made good; 
and I have faith that this policy will be carried 
to successful completion, because I believe that 
the people of the West are behind it.” 
British Columbia Big Game. 
Vancouver, Aug. 20. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: There have been two slight alterations 
in our game laws which, though they are not 
likely to affect anybody coming here to hunt, it 
is as well to have made public. 
It is now unlawful to kill moose and wapiti 
(commonly called elk) in East Kootenay. Moun¬ 
tain sheep in that portion of the country to the 
south of the Canadian Pacific Railway from the 
coast as far east as the Columbia River from 
Revelstoke to the International boundary line. 
The districts in which sheep are protected 
practically means the Okanagon and Similakmeen 
districts, as it is very doubtful if there are any 
sheep left in any other portion inside of the de¬ 
fined area. Sheep may still be killed as before 
in the Rockies, in East Kootenay, as that is the 
other side of the Columbia River. 
I may say that anybody who had arranged to 
hunt sheep" in the district that has lately been 
declared protected, would have stood a very poor 
chance of obtaining any sport, as the number of 
these animals left is extremely limited. 
Wapiti (commonly called elk) have been pro¬ 
tected in East Kootenay for the past two years, 
but was omitted in the last issue of the chart 
of seasons, and being an Order-in-Council would 
not appear in the regular game laws. 
As a matter of fact I do not believe that^there 
are more than twenty moose left in East Koote¬ 
nay, and probably about double that number of 
wapiti, and the chances of finding a decent head 
would be small. 
There are no other changes, and those that 
have been made should not in the least affect any¬ 
body coming here to hunt, as there are many 
far superior sheep and moose countries open to 
our visitors. A. Bryan Williams, 
Provincial Game and Forest Warden. 
Missouri Quail. 
Nevada, Mo.—T was out in the country Sun¬ 
day and talked with a farmer who told me that 
he thought he had 500 young quail on his place. 
He said he had never seen so many young ones 
in his life. It was dry here this spring and fine 
for hatching, and we all look for fine sport this 
fall. H - L - G - 
