8 5 6 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 30, 1908. 
White Mountain-Appal&chian Bill. 
Concord, N. H., May 23. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The bill for National forests in the 
White Mountains and Southern Appalachian 
Mountains has passed the Senate, but has met 
obstruction in the Agricultural Committee of the 
House, which will postpone action until the next 
session of Congress. Another year’s delay in 
the White Mountains is a serious matter at a 
time when cutting the forest on the steep slopes 
has already been carried to an extreme limit. 
After five years more the forests on the high 
slopes of the White Mountains will have dis¬ 
appeared. After that they will be ready, like 
the mountains of France, for reforestation at 
vast expense, in order to prevent alternating 
floods and periods of low water. 
This is the second time that this bill has passed 
the Senate. The President has urged the meas¬ 
ure upon Congress in nearly every one of his 
important messages throughout the year. A 
majority of the members of the House are be¬ 
lieved to favor it, but the political leaders of 
the House claim that they cannot take “hasty 
action’’ because the matter is “too important.” 
Had they been sincere about its importance it 
must have passed immediately. The situation 
is like that outlined by ex-Governor Pardee, of 
California, at the President’s conference last 
week. Governor Glenn had spoken of vox 
populi vox Dei, and Governor Pardee added 
that he had observed in matters of important 
legislation another voice abroad in the land, vox 
Cannoni, which he was inclined to think was 
neither the voice of God nor the voice of the 
people. 
The situation in the House is this: The Com¬ 
mittee on Agriculture was reorganized by the 
speaker at this session with two important 
friends of this measure left off and several new 
members from the Middle West, unfamiliar with 
it, put on. The committee found itself divided 
half and half, one part favoring immediate pas¬ 
sage of the bill and the other part desirous of 
- investigating what could be done for these and 
other watersheds not already protected by Na¬ 
tional forests. The result is that the committee 
has recommended to the House the appointment 
of another commission, five members of the 
House and five of the Senate, with an appro¬ 
priation of $20,000 for expenses, to investigate 
the situation. At the session of Congress a year 
ago $25,000 was appropriated for an investiga¬ 
tion of the Southern Appalachian and White 
Mountains by the Secretary of Agriculture, who 
has made a complete and satisfactory report of 
both regions, urging prompt action by Congress. 
Previous to that the Forest Service, in co-opera¬ 
tion with the States at both ends of the line, 
made a most careful and thorough study of all 
the facts concerned, including the value of the 
several tracts of land, and the amount of timber 
upon them. A new commission made up of 
persons not familiar with the subject looks like 
a political trick to postpone action. The faintest 
indication of approval on the part of the speaker, 
either in this or the preceding Congress, would 
have been quite sufficient to bring this measure 
promptly and favorably from his committee. 
The House Committee on Judiciary rendered a 
decision that forests can be purchased by the 
Government only in the interest of navigation, 
whereupon the bills in the House and Senate 
were both promptly redrawn. That in the Senate 
has passed. Why not the one in the House? 
When the mill owners of New England find 
their power disturbed by protracted low water, 
let them reflect upon their form of popular gov¬ 
ernment, and when the advancing scarcity of 
wood again doubles the prices of houses, furni¬ 
ture and tools, let the people ask if this is the 
voice of the speaker, who has obstructed a meas¬ 
ure wisely planned for relief, that has been re¬ 
peatedly endorsed by the President, by the 
Senate, by the Forest Service, by engineers, lum¬ 
bermen, scientific associations and a unanimous 
press. F. W. Rollins, 
President Society for the Protection 
of New Hampshire Forests. 
Protection of National Forests. 
The first duty of the Forest Service is to pro¬ 
tect the National forests. These forests are 
mainly virgin in the sense that but little of their 
area has been cut over. They are not, how¬ 
ever, virgin in the sense of being fully stocked 
with timber. A fully established forest which 
has never been interfered with does not gain. 
It makes no more wood by growth than it loses 
by decay. Most of the forested area of the 
West, however, has been severely interfered 
with for many years, chiefly by fire. Fires 
caused much damage even before white man 
entered the country. They have caused much 
more since. The most serious part of the dam¬ 
age caused by the ordinary forest fire is that 
done to the young growth, from the tiny seed¬ 
lings in their first year up. To this damage by 
fire must be added the heavy damage caused in 
the past by the overgrazing of stock, and es¬ 
pecially of sheep. 
With the checking of these and other abuses 
through administration by the Government, the 
quantity of timber in the National forests is on 
the increase again. Even were no timber cut, 
the present supposed stand of 350,000,000,000 
board feet of timber on the National forests 
would be adding very materially to its quantity 
each year that fires are kept out. It may be 
said in passing that the fire loss on these forests 
is now reduced almost to a negligible figure. If 
the entire cost of the forest administration for 
the last fiscal year were charged to the account 
of fire protection, it would be equivalent to an 
insurance charge of something like $2 per $1,000 
During the calendar year 1907, the timbered 
area of National forest land burned over was 
about two one-hundredths of one per cent, of 
the total area of National forests, and consider¬ 
ably less than one one-hundredth of one per 
cent, of the standing timber was destroyed. In 
other words, looking at the matter from a 
strictly business standpoint, the Government 
may well feel that it did not do badly last year 
with its forest property, even though its per 
acre expenditures and receipts were very low, 
since the forests carried themselves, and in so 
doing paid for a protection of the property 
which, if regarded as insurance, was worth at 
the ordinary insurance rate of city property 
more than the gross expenditures of the Gov¬ 
ernment upon its forests. And in addition to 
this valuable consideration obtained without ex¬ 
pense, the Government has gained also by the 
decided improvement of the forests which pro¬ 
tection from fires and other causes of injury has 
brought.—American Industries. 
Adirondack Camp Troubles. 
Little Falls, N. Y., May 20.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Owners of camps throughout the 
Adirondacks are growing more and more wor¬ 
ried about the depredations of camp thieves. On 
the Canada Lakes (East Canada Creek) several 
camps were entered last winter, the furniture 
broken, bedding torn up and everything worth 
carrying lugged away. The damage aggregated 
a considerable sum. I hear that other camp 
localities have suffered similarly. 
There are two reasons for the depredations.’ 
Perhaps the most important is the fact that the 
value of articles left in camps has increased. 
There are thousands of dollars’ worth of rifles 
and shotguns left in camps miles from any 
habitation and in the wilderness. Fishing rods 
and tackle of even greater value are left in the 
camps Then there are the blankets worth from 
$6 to $15 a pair, boats worth up to $75 to $100, 
implements—axes, hatchets, knives, cooking and 
other utensils. Thus the temptation for woods¬ 
men to outfit at someone else’s expense is very 
great. 
But there is another reason which is signifi¬ 
cant, and which accounts for the wanton dam¬ 
age to camps. In former times all Adirondack 
camps were left open, and all were welcome who 
were reasonably careful of camp property. 
Woodsmen could find camps, or could build 
camps wherever they wanted. They used their 
own camps and the camps of others without 
hindrance. But in late years the woods camps 
have changed from lean-tos to little log camps 
hidden in the brush, and from open camps at 
well known places to tight locked camps. These 
camps are constructed with boarded window 
shutters, and doors barred with iron and heavily 
bolted and inside locks. All the camps in the 
neighborhood, whether built by woodsmen or 
others, are burned. I know of one little club 
whose members destroyed two or three woods¬ 
men’s camps and locked up their own camp— 
all on open lands not owned by the club. The 
result is that woodsmen are embittered. Sooner 
or later the closed camp suffers. 
Thus between tempting assortments of plunder 
and unfair tactics on the hunting grounds and 
in the fishing country, woodsmen are growing 
careless as regards other people’s property. I 
do not believe it is natural for Adirondack 
woodsmen to steal. I know that woodsmen ap¬ 
proved the arrest and conviction of camp rob¬ 
bers of ten or fifteen years ago. Now they are 
glad when they hear of depredations on camps. - 
A private preserver lost a boat said to have cost 
$60 or $75 last summer. It was taken at night, 
the public does not know what became of it, but 
scores of people “were glad of it,” simply be¬ 
cause the owner had made himself unpopular. 
The thief or thieves could hardly have an excuse 
for taking the boat except revenge. There are 
no waters where it could be used without ex¬ 
posure, save, perhaps, in jacking deer or night 
fishing on some ten-acre pond. 
One step forward has been made in Adiron¬ 
dack character, however. It is no longer the 
boast of the leading citizens in the logging busi¬ 
ness that they made their money stealing timber. 
Some of them are trying to be decent and reput¬ 
able citizens, or at least to appear so. This fact 
indicates that public opinion has changed very 
remarkably in the past three or four years. It 
