Vol. XVIII-No. 1

A

EDITORIAL.

LREADY Forestry Legislation is looming up in the minds of those who are to pass upon it during the coming session. Hitherto it has been regarded as a subordinate issue. The recent utterances of the Governor indicate that he is not inclined to consider it in that light. It has also taken a much greater hold upon the public than ever before. It is already among the interests in which woman is enlisted. Long before this Legislature closes the Committee on Appropriations will recognize how profoundly the conservative masses of our citizens, women and men, are interested in forest protection and restoration. The additional burdens and hardships that our non-productive areas will place on coming generations are questions of most serious concern to those who have families to succeed them. Shall we allow life to be made harder for our children?

Mr. Pinchot has placed absolute prevention of forest fires in his list of necessary measures. If money, men and enforcement of law can bring it about he is determined to end the wicked waste that burns up not only the present, but the coming timber resources of the commonwealth. In as far as the Pennsylvania Forestry Association fails to back him in this great endeavor it will fail in a patriotic duty. It is time for us to gird ourselves for the combat. The wealth that within remembrance of men living now, we have burned up, wasted, and deprived our children of, fairly staggers the imagination.

It has been allowed to continue simply because of public stupidity, for mere indifference could not remain inactive if the actual loss to the individual and the neighborhood and the State could be made clear to the dullest intellect. Now that we know, and that exact information of the destructiveness of these annual burnings has been placed before the people we may hope for reform. The question put by the several courts of the State to constables, supervisors and such officials as are to report neighborhood conditions, should be searching in character and not merely perfunctory, as it has been too often hitherto.

Whole Number 201

of land for State forests at a pace hitherto impossible because of lack of funds. For the last decade the Forest Commission has been obliged to refuse many most tempting offers of very desirable tracts for want of money. It may be safely assumed that the State, sooner or later, will be obliged in self protection to buy millions of acres in our abandoned highlands and that the longer we delay, the more we will pay, the poorer the lands will have become and the greater will be the cost of restoration and the longer will we wait for it. Every element of business prudence demands immediate recognition of these plain facts.

That appropriations will be cut to the bone is clear. Roads, Education and Forestry will pound as never before at the door of the Appropriation Committee. All are fundamental to State prosperity, all must have the utmost penny that can be squeezed from things which are mere side issues in comparison, or are simply tribute to some local demand.

If this Legislature measures up to these conditions it will be a session the like of which Pennsylvania has never quite had and it will be as memorable as it will be unusual.

To say that the appropriations for the conduct of the State Departments are practically what is left after the thousand and one other calls have been considered would not be very far from the truth. Such a system of disposal of State money always leaves the major interests of the Commonwealth short of the actual needs.

Quite aside from the appropriations there are other questions that are likely to reach the Legislature during its earlier hours. Especially is this the case with one likely to involve sooner or later the doctrine of State Rights. There is a practical unanimity of opinion among the friends of forestry upon the points mentioned above, but upon the one involving State rights there is as marked a difference. The case is this: Some years back an enabling Act was passed by our Legislature, authorizing the Federal Government to purchase lands on the head waters of our streams for forestry purposes, as that, it was contended, would be as much in the interest of our State as in the interest of the general government. Which contention was, no doubt, true-but back of all that rose the spectre of centralized power, and the vanishing of State rights. There was very strong opposition to the act and it was finally passed only on insertion of a clause which would empower the State to purchase that land back for the price at which it was sold to the Federal Government, plus 4 per cent. interest.

An attempt is to be made during this session of the Legislature to repeal that part of the Act which will allow the State to recover possession of the land within its borders.

It is not necessary to call attention to the supreme importance of the questions involved in either the Act itself, or in the proposed repeal of portions of that Act. It is enough to say that the concensus of opinion of the friends of forestry in the State is that any change in the existing law is inadvisable. There should be a full expression before any action is taken that may prove to be irrevocable!

"I

J. T. Rothrock,

A Letter from Mr. Pinchot.

January 12, 1921.

"Editor of 'Forest Leaves': N the comment on correspondence between Messrs. Greeley and Peters of the United States Forest Service and me which appears on page 186 of the December number of Forest Leaves,' the impression is clearly conveyed that under the plan of National control which I advocate the Pennsylvania State Forests would fall within the domain of Federal authority, and cutting upon them would be regulated by National authorities. This impression is wholly mistaken.

"Federal supervision of the management of forests owned and administered by the different State governments is not now and never has

been any part of the National Control plan. If you will turn to the second paragraph on page 190 you will find that 'Forest Leaves' quotes me correctly as saying: 'What I propose is that the Federal Government shall undertake what the State Forest organizations never have done, and in my judgment as State Forester of Pennsylvania never can accomplish.' The State Forest organizations are handling the State Forests now and there is no disposition to question their undoubted right to continue to do so wholly without National interference.

"Pennsylvania already depends upon other States for four-fifths of her timber supply. Within ten years the larger part of the wood necessary to keep our industries and agriculture alive must come from the Pacific Coast. The State Control plan, therefore, means leaving our whole future prosperity to the mercy of the State legislatures of Washington, Oregon, and California.

"For my part, I am not willing to leave the future of Pennsylvania to the mercy of the legislatures of other States, and I have confidence enough in the sound sense of our people to believe that the moment they understand the actual situation they will be substantially unanimous for Federal control, for through Federal control alone can we have something to say about the preservation of our prosperity during the decades while our own forests are still too young to cut. To be safe we must have wood. State control will never assure it to us.

"I call your attention particularly to the fact that there are practically no forests in our State which would fall under the control of the Nation, since the lumber woods of Pennsylvania are substantially exhausted. Federal control would be exercised for our benefit over the forests of the timber exporting states. It means the regulation of cutting in the small minority of forested states for the benefit of the unforested or deforested states, which are in the great majority.

"Before the great crisis of a National timber famine, which is not far ahead, little considerations of jurisdiction must give way to the supreme consideration of saving for our agriculture and our industries the supplies of lumber without which they cannot survive.

"You will, I am sure, give to this correction the same publicity which you gave to the original mistake."

We are very glad to receive and to print the above letter from Mr. Pinchot, bearing on the questions raised by his correspondence with Mr. Peters and Colonel Greeley, printed in the Decem