There are 396 tree species mentioned in the present forestry regulations, and we know of 50 more growing in these islands, and each week we learn of still other species. It is safe to state that the number of tree species found in these islands will be nearer 500 than 450, a great majority of these undoubtedly being hard woods. The edges of the great forests have been scarcely cut away and 50 valuable hard woods are given to the world, the full value of which species have not been demonstrated as yet.

There is a great variety of valuable gum, rubber, and gutta-percha trees, but the trade has been ruined by the Chinese in their efforts at adulteration and other fraudulent practices.

We have a list of 17 dyewoods, the revenue from which if properly exploited should pay the cost of the forestry service.

A book has been written by Tavera on the medicinal qualities of the native plants, many trees being mentioned as possessing valuable medicinal qualities.

The ylang ylang tree abounds here, its blossoms producing an oil which is the base of many renowned perfumes. Quite a revenue is gained by those owning these

trees.

The west slope of the island of Romblon is a mass of cocoanut palms from the water's edge to the mountain top, every tree bringing in a yearly revenue of from $1 to $2, and when it is realized that 400 or 500 such trees may be grown on an acre, one is struck with the wisdom of that former commander of Romblon who insisted upon such extensive planting of these trees. In all parts of the southern islands these trees seem to grow without any effort or care.

Southern Paragua and Mindanao are celebrated for the great variety of gum, rubber, and gutta-percha trees grown there, but these forests have never been properly exploited and afford a very attractive field for the investigator.

This office is at work compiling notes on about fifty of the most important tree species, giving popular and scientific descriptions of same with colored illustrations of the fruit, flowers, and leaf of each species. This, if arranged in book form, would be of service to all interested in our forests and will be of great value to the American and other lumbermen who are not familiar with the tropical tree species and who wish to operate in these islands. It will be the aim of this bureau to collect all data of interest connected with our forests. Specimens of woods will be added to those now on hand and their uses and beauty shown as far as practicable.

MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.

There are no forest roads or river driveways in these islands that are worth mentioning. It will be impossible to exploit these forests until roads are constructed, rivers improved, and harbors provided. The methods at present are exceedingly slow and expensive. The tree is felled far from any road, is hauled out very slowly by one or more carabaos, many tracts being left untouched, due to the difficulty of the haul and the lack of roads. The natives are not skilled lumbermen, and while paid but a small wage are by no means cheap labor when we consider the cost of felling and hauling a cubic foot of timber to the shipping point.

The most interesting statistics from foreign forestry reports are those published by Germany, showing the increase in the value of forest lands as the character of the roads improve. Good stone roads have made the German forest lands worth to-day on an average of $181 (gold) per acre, and these same lands with standing timber less in quantity and quality than we find at present on many large areas in these islands. There will be some difficulty in the construction of roads in such places as Cagayan, Mindoro, and Paragua, but these difficulties can be overcome. The money for this construction should be appropriated from the forest revenues. Competent engineers should supervise the work. Stone is plentiful and available, but labor is scarce, and

such as we have is poor and uncertain. This latter will be the one great difficulty; when that is solved, engineers and money will build roads that will make the Philippine forests yield a revenue that is undreamed of to-day by the residents of these islands.

Lumbermen contemplating extensive operations, after solving the labor problem, must next consider the roads and driveways. The main roads should be built by the State with a view to the gradual betterment of the tributary forests. For several years the efforts of the forestry service should be directed to a judicious thinning of the dense jungles where an axe has never been heard; many varieties of undesirable tree species should be cut away and the dense growth thinned out. The State and lumbermen should work together; after the first roads are started the lumbermen can figure on the possibilities of the first forest so tapped. There are no pure forests of any one tree species; dozens of varieties grow in each forest, but rarely more than three or four trees of one variety found grouped together, so that any lumberman looking for a shipload of any one species would find it impossible to cut that and no other, but would be obliged to procure the same by purchase from men operating the different sections. Lumbermen must be willing to take dozens of varieties of tree species; these species may not be desired by the lumberman, but the forester must get rid of them. A plan of exploitation should be provided in advance by the forestry bureau and then submitted to the lumbermen interested and have the forests cut as per said plans, either by contract or by the payment of the State price per cubic foot.

SURVEYS.

Before such can be done, however, it will be necessary to make a survey of the public lands.

Triangulation surveys can be made at the present time and as conditions permit the detailed work can follow.

Then the forest surveys may be made and the amount and kinds of standing timber reported thereon. Plans of exploitation would then be possible, and the lumbermen would know where to go to cut the timber desired and the amount available.

CONCLUSIONS.

From the above it is evident that there is a very large area of very valuable public forest land in these islands; that these forests are as a rule not at present available, due to the lack of roads and skilled lumbermen. The present personnel have not been well trained and have never practiced scientific forestry; the public forest lands are unsurveyed and the amount of standing timber unknown.

We must begin at once with the personnel. The students about to graduate in the colleges here should be shown the advantages of a career in the forestry service and · a forestry class started, so that when scientific forestry is begun we will have properly trained men to assist in the work.

Large lumber companies will not be ready to do much work here for at least one year. By that time we will be ready with an administrative force.

The aim of the forester is to improve the forest until a given area produces each year a maximum of wood of the most desirable species. A careful study of the desirable species is of first importance. The undesirable species must be cleared away, and by thoroughly and scientifically exploiting any one good forest tract the great increase in value of the same will be apparent and a policy of rational forestry encouraged in these islands, which policy in time will make these forests a source of great wealth, will afford employment for many thousand men, will make such islands as Mindoro habitable, will regulate the water flow, and will afford ready

communication through what is at present impassable and deadly jungle. (See App. KK. Rep. of Military Governor of the Philippine Islands on Civil Affairs, year ending June 30, 1900, pp. 188-190.)

The foregoing reports were communicated to Congress and presumably considered by that body. It is also well known that by reason of military operations and the ravages of the insurgents very many dwellings and other buildings, in many instances entire towns, have been destroyed and the inhabitants made homeless refugees. The Government is now seeking to induce the inhabitants to return to their homes, rebuild their houses and towns, and engage in the pursuits of peace. The existing and improving conditions create a desire among these people to return home; but it is necessary to rebuild these homes; and to do that timber must be secured. The enormous forests in the Philippines formerly belonged to the Spanish Crown. Spain permitted the free cutting of timber to be used exclusively in the construction of homes for the parties making application and for bridges and other public structures and improvements in the islands.

Several of the more important industries of the islands by which the inhabitants secure the means of existence consist of collecting the products of these forests, such as sap, from which a great variety of valuable gums, rubber, and gutta-percha are made; the perfumeproducing blossoms of trees, cocoanuts and other valuable nuts, tropical fruits, dyewoods, and medicinal plants, etc.

Cooking in the Philippines, as in other tropical countries, is done with charcoal, great quantities of which are consumed in the islands. To produce the necessary supply the "down timber" and surplus growth of the forests has been utilized for centuries.

The surplus growth and "down timber" of every great forest works positive injury to the forest, and every nation which has forestry laws intended to promote the welfare of its forests provides for the disposition and removal of such timber in order to enable the remaining trees to acquire a better growth and symmetry, and to prevent the destruction of the forests by fire.

It can not be presumed that Congress intended to render it impossible for the great majority of the inhabitants of the islands whose homes have been destroyed to rebuild their houses; nor to destroy the several industries by which so many people of the industrial classes earn a living; nor to increase the difficulties of reestablishing the conditions of peace and stopping the war in said islands; nor to prevent the authorities of the local government from preserving the valuable forests which are now the property of the United States. On the contrary, the presumption is that Congress intended to promote such matters and objects, and if said act can be interpreted in harmony with such purpose that interpretation must be given it.

Only a small quantity of growing timber in the Philippines is the

subject of private ownership. In the cabled inquiry of the commission herein before set out appears the following:

Very little timber on private land; people almost entirely are obliged to depend upon purchase timber from Government land to repair damages owing to the war.

Mr. Thomas Collins, testifying before the Philippine Commission at Manila, in May, 1899, said:

I have been in this country thirty years last February, and have been engaged in the timber business some twenty-five years * * * You could get concessions from the Government to cut timber on the land anywhere, but you could not cut on private property without making an arrangement with the man who owned the land; but there were very few people who owned timber lands. * The land owned by private individuals was mostly under cultivation, or without being under cultivation the good timber has been cut off. (Report of Philippine Commission, 1899, vol. 2, pp. 79–85.)

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If a construction is given this Congressional enactment which cuts off the inhabitants of the islands in their hour of need from the natural supply of timber to which they have had recourse for centuries, they will be at the mercy of the owners of the small amount of timber land subject to private ownership, who will possess a monopoly capable of being more oppressive than any one of the exclusive concessions granted by the Crown of Spain. Nothing short of malevolence would attribute such intention to the American Congress.

The enactment under consideration was undoubtedly intended by Congress to accomplish some important and well-defined purpose. Continuing the investigation of the facts and conditions with which Congress felt called upon to deal, it will not escape observation that during the last session of the late Congress it was stated in the news papers and in Congress that companies were being organized for the purpose of acquiring title to large bodies of timber lands in the Philippines belonging to the Government of the United States and to the timber on said lands, with intent to cut down and destroy said forests. It is impossible at this time to determine the present or prospective value of these vast tropical forests, and it would be manifestly injudicious for the United States to dispose of them or to permit the enactment of a general law, the operation of which would enable anyone to secure permanent rights in regard thereto, either of title to the land, the timber, or the products thereof.

The enactment under consideration was engrafted upon the army appropriation bill by what is known as the "Spooner amendment." As originally offered, this amendment did not contain the proviso "That no sale or lease or other disposition of the public lands or the timber thereon or the mining rights therein shall be made." The amendment originally provided that—

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All military, civil, and judicial powers necessary to govern the Philippine Islands * shall, until otherwise provided by Congress, be vested in such person and persons and shall be exercised in such manner as the President of the United States shall direct.

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Congress might reasonably anticipate that the persons designated by the President to exercise legislative powers under this enactment would provide a general law governing forestry and forests in the islands, which by virtue of general provisions and operation would enable persons and companies to secure large tracts of land and valuable rights which would eventually prove embarrassing to the United States, and possibly be secured without adequate compensation. The probability of forestry legislation was made greater by the fact that the report of the Philippine Commission, dated January 24, 1901, stated that

The whole matter will be made the subject of careful investigation and legislative action in the near future.

The forests in the Philippines belonging to the United States are part of the property of the United States. The right to dispose of such property is vested in Congress by the Constitution. (Art. IV., sec. 3.) This right Congress has sedulously guarded during our entire history. It seems clear that by this proviso Congress manifested its unwillingness to authorize the authorities of the local government of the Philippines to alienate or permanently dispose of the property of the United States consisting of the forests on public lands in the islands.

That Congress intended said proviso as a restriction upon the authority to grant permanent rights by general legislation, and not a restriction on temporary privileges of limited extent, such as may be secured by a franchise, permit, or license, is shown by the additional proviso connected with and relating to the proviso under consideration, as follows:

And provided further, That no franchise shall be granted which is not approved by the President of the United States, and is not in his judgment clearly necessary for the immediate government of the islands and indispensable for the interest of the people thereof, and which can not, without great public mischief, be postponed until the establishment of permanent civil government; and all such franchises terminate one year after the establishment of such permanent civil government.

66 Franchise" is defined as follows:

A liberty, a right, a privilege. (English Law Dic.)

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A special privilege conferred by government on individuals, and which does not belong to the citizens generally by common right. * * In a popular sense, the word seems to be synonymous with right or privilege. (Bouvier's Dic.)

A particular privilege conferred by grant from a sovereign or a government and vested in individuals; an immunity or exemption from ordinary jurisdiction. (Webster.)

Apparently Congress recognized the rights and necessities of the inhabitants of the islands, and attempted to provide therefor and at the same time to protect the interests of the United States. To accomplish this double purpose Congress protected the United States from improvident disposal of its property under the provisions of a