state governments should

resources of the country and signify our high appreciation of his Federal and action in calling this Conference to consider the same and to seek remedies therefor through co-operation of the Nation and the cooperate. States. We agree that this co-operation should find expression in suitable action by the Congress within the limits of and coextensive with the national jurisdiction of the subject and, complementary thereto, by the Legislatures of the several States within the limits of and coextensive with their jurisdiction.

We declare the conviction that in the use of the natural resources our independent States are interdependent and bound together by ties of mutual benefits, responsibilities and duties.

conferences.

We agree in the wisdom of future conferences between the Future President, members of Congress and the Governors of the States on the conservation of our natural resources with a view to continued co-operation and action on the lines suggested. And to this end we advise that from time to time, as in his judgment may seem wise, the President call the Governors of the States, members of Congress and others into conference.

our

resources.

We agree that further action is advisable to ascertain the present A survey of condition of our natural resources and to promote the conservation of the same. And to that end we recommend the appointment by each State of a commission on the conservation of natural resources to co-operate with each other and with any similar commission on behalf of the Federal Government.

servation.

We urge the continuation and extension of forest policies adapted Forest conto secure the husbanding and renewal of our diminishing timber supply, prevention of soil erosion, the protection of headwaters and the maintenance of the purity and navigability of our streams. We recognize that the private ownership of forest lands entails responsibilities in the interests of all the people, and we favor the enactment of laws looking to the protection and replacement of privately owned forests.

We recognize in our waters a most valuable asset of the people Irrigation. of the United States and we recommend the enactment of laws

looking to the conservation of water resources for irrigation, water

Consumption of

timber.

The forests

will pay.

supply, power and navigation, to the end that navigable and source streams may be brought under complete control and fully utilized for every purpose. We especially urge on the Federal Congress the immediate adoption of a wise, active and thorough waterway policy, providing for the prompt improvement of our streams and conservation of their watersheds required for the uses of commerce and the protection of the interests of our people.

We recommend the enactment of laws looking to the prevention of waste in the mining and extraction of coal, oil, gas and other minerals, with a view to their wise conservation for the use of the people and to the protection of human life in the mines. Let us conserve the foundations of our prosperity.

150. Why Forest Reservations Should Be Made

In 1906, the Senate committee in charge of the bill providing for the purchase of vast areas in the Appalachian and White mountains for forest reservations made this argument in support of the policy they were advocating:

First. The creation of these reserves is a wise public policy. Between the census of the years 1850 and 1900, the population of the country increased from 23,000,000 to 76,000,000, or 330 per cent., but the money value of the lumber product which it consumed increased from $60,000,000 to $566,000,000 or 940 per cent. Both the per capita consumption of timber and the price of timber are increasing. It is estimated that 24 per cent. of the Southern Appalachian region has been deforested. Deforestation means loss of power to produce future forests. It is in the public interest that these lands should be acquired and held by the Government as permanent sources of timber supply.

Second. The acquisition of these lands by the Government will be good business policy. The use of the western reserves is just beginning, but the Government receipts from these reserves are approximating one-half the outgo. Within a short term of years, they will undoubtedly carry themselves. At the same time their

property value is rising and will continue to rise, both from the increasing value of the timber and from the greater productiveness of the forests under management. With a present value of not less than $250,000,000, these western reserves are being administered at an annual cost of one third of one per cent of this sum while they are increasing in value fully 10 per cent a year. This is in addition to their enormous indirect returns to the public welfare from their indispensable relation to successful irrigation, to mining and other industries which demand lumber, to settlers, and to stock grazing.

deforesta

tion on

Third. The creation of these reserves is, now or later, a neces- Effect of sary policy. Sooner or later the certain consequences of forest destruction which is now taking place will force the national navigation government to step in. The question is not merely that of preventing the impoverishment of the immediate localities and the conversion of productive land into a waste of barren rock. The loss of the forest is followed by the loss of the soil and by recurring floods. The headwaters of every important river south of the Ohio and the Potomac and east of the Mississippi including the tributaries of these streams, rise in the southern Appalachians, while the White Mountains feed important rivers of every New England state except Rhode Island. The rainfall of both regions is heavy and distributed throughout the year.

sandbars.

After denudation, every rain turns the shrunken streams into Floods and mountain torrents which devastate property and bear down vast quantities of silt to obstruct navigable rivers. The sand bars thus formed accentuate the effect of alternating high and low water periods, and large government expenditures for dredging and harbor improvements are entailed. The clearing of river channels and harbors in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama is now being urged. Yet deforestation is only in its first stage. Eventually in this country, as has been the case in France, the stripped mountains will become so inimical to the public good that the Government will have to take charge of them and reforest them. But the expense of this, when once the forests are gone,

The problem not a local one.

The

problem is national in character.

will be only less ruinous than the damage which it will check, and the remedy will require many years to become operative.

The question of establishing these reserves is not a local or a state question, but a national question. The interests affected are interstate. The evils which the reserves will check fall most heavily on distant communities, and even upon the National Government. Here again, if we are wise, we shall draw a lesson from French experience. In France, the first efforts to repair the disastrous effects of torrents were made by engineers along the low water courses. Dredging and dams, however, proved at best but temporarily effective. Only when they began to push their work up to the headwaters of the streams did they find themselves on the right road. The Government now puts into the building of levees and the improvement of navigation in rivers and harbors many millions of dollars annually. The reserves constitute a far more economical expenditure for the same purpose in addition to their large contributions to public welfare.

It is not right to expect the state within which these areas lie to reserve them for the benefit of other states. It is impossible for states which suffer from conditions outside their own territory to remedy them by their own action. There has been set aside in the West, for essentially the same purposes which these reserves will secure, a vast area of reserves created from the national domain and benefiting primarily the people of the West. But the interests involved both in the West and in the East are too broad to be regarded as even sectional merely. The benefits of the proposed reserves will be national benefits and their expenses should be borne by the nation.

151. The National Forest Reserves

Mr. Gifford Pinchot, whose eminent services as chief of the Forest Service have won for him national recognition, briefly describes in this interesting article published in The Independent the extent and character of the national forest domain.

of our forests.

The United States now holds in National Forests (formerly The extent called forest reserves) about 165,000,000 acres of land. This is a vast area greater than all of France, and more than double that of the British Isles. It is, however, but 7 per cent. of the total area of the United States. As a permanent source of wood supply it is altogether inadequate, by itself, even for our present needs. Though most of the forest upon it is still virgin, the timber now standing would hold out against a rate of consumption equal to that of 1906 (the last year for which the figures have as yet been compiled) for not more than four or five years. Yet at the average price which the Forest Service is now getting for timber from the National Forests this timber would bring, just as it stands in the woods, nearly enough to pay the national debt.

should be in woodland?

European publicists have held that from one-fifth to one-third of How much a country should be in woodland. No such sweeping rule can, of course, be applied exactly; all the economic conditions must be taken into account. A country of high fertility and dense population, like Belgium or Holland, will do best to draw most of its wood supplies from abroad. The United States, however, must expect always to grow most of its timber supply at home. Indeed, as the world-shortage of timber, which is certainly approaching, becomes acute, we must expect the competition of foreign markets for the products of our own forests. It is commonly supposed that we shall be able to fall back on Canada, but Canada can give us nothing more than temporary relief. The Canadian forests hold far less merchantable timber than has been supposed; growing in the North they grow slowly; and their output will, as the country develops, be in increasing demand for home use, to say nothing of the needs of England and of the Pacific trade. Rightly used, the land in the United States, better suited to growing forests than to any other purpose, should fully supply our needs; but it is important to remember that more than three-quarters of this land is in private hands, and not in the National Forests.

Even within the National Forests not all of the land belongs to the Government; and of that which does, not all is timbered.