FORESTS AND STREAM-FLOW

Again consumption in all things is in proportion to price. Advance the price of lumber, and you reduce the consumption. Stone, brick, concrete, and steel are ready substitutes, as the price of lumber advances. In Europe, lumber is no longer a necessity, only a luxury, and not one much cared for at that; this has been forced home to me in countries I have visited during the past six months. Six days from New York we touch the Azores, a land where no lumber is used except for floor-joists and rafters in the cheaper buildings; next we touched Madeira, and found a city of stone. So with Gibraltar, southern Spain, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Italy, France; not a lumber yard in all these countries that we could find. A cargo a year would supply the demand for all purposes. The wonder was not how these people get along without lumber, but how they use the 60 feet per annum they are reported to require. I do not think there is one shingleroof in all those countries, and I expect a very good knowledge of Arabic would be needed to explain to those people what a shingle is and its use. In Constantinople we found a few miserable board shacks. Lumber comes to that market at a low price from the Black Sea, and it appears to be a detriment rather than a good. In Switzerland and southern Germany, some houses are built of wood above the lower story; but I think there are no shingle roofs. These countries are well timbered, with trees in rows showing they are planted. The price of common lumber is only a little higher than with us, but labor is cheap, and growing timber exempt from taxes. Trees there can find a profitable market, trunks, limbs, stump, and roots. It is then, little wonder mountain sides, impossible for agriculture, should be planted to timber. Those timber areas do not use much of their lumber. In Switzerland and Germany we found saw mills, some of them of fair capacity, and shipping by rail, but their towns were built of stone. The mills select the largest trees, and replace with new plants. In time we shall reach some of these same conditions, and plant our timber instead of allowing it to grow at will. All this will come about when proper laws are enacted.

American people will some time awaken to the fact, long since known in Europe, that timber is no necessity; only a makeshift. Bridges of rock, houses of brick and stone and steel, with roofs of tile, are for the centuries; buildings of wood are only for the years and the flames. Lumber is cheap in the new countries, and convenient for quick shelter; and it is there forests are found. Big timbers may become scarce, but their demand is also decreasing. Already our cities have fire limits. Bridges and spars are of steel; and if our farmers could obtain money at city rates, it is doubtful if it would not be cheaper for them to build fire-proof houses than to pay higher insurance on wooden buildings. Already roofs of shingles are in balance with roofs of other and safer material, and the price of shingles is fixed by this competition. As it is with shingles it will be with lumber, and is for many purposes; in many countries for nearly all purposes.

Do not think I underestimate the value of our timber, or fail to advocate its protection and reproduction; but he who says we are approaching the time when timber values are to be much greater than now, and he who predicts a timber famine, have both overlooked facts that will come to the front with the years. The cry of "Fire!" never stopped a conflagration. The cry of Conservation will never stop the waste of valueless commodities. Action is needed in both instances, if results are to be attained. To conserve our timber we must give it value. Let the Government refuse to sell from its reserves except for cost of reproduction; also protect us from foreign competition. Educate our loggers to the enormity of the crime of burning choppings fit only for the timber crop. Let States impose rigid fire laws and make liberal appropriation for forest protection. Let our legislators see the folly and injustice of taxing the same crop year after year; a crop that can contribute nothing toward paying those taxes until marketed, a crop that is of far less value per acre than the yield of fruit gathered each year. Do not be afraid the few remaining timber owners are going to be benefited at the expense of the many; rather the benefit will be for our children and our children's children. Above all, remember the timber owner is not to blame, only fortunate that he bought timber that our Government was willing to part with for a song; and hold our laws and their makers responsible for results for which they, only, are to blame.

The forest fires of the West today are more often set by the railroads than by all others. Their locomotives are torches of demons, tearing through our forests, streaming fire from their stacks and leaving all behind in flames. From the rear platforms of trains I have seen hundreds of little fires spring up as we passed—this, when the woods were dry and conditions right. The timber they burn is their resources for freight. The destruction they create is a loss of millions to their own business. It would seem prosecution for damage done should follow their wanton torches, and that laws should be made for the protection of their own interests they so recklessly ignore. It is no longer the logger or the settler that causes our forest fires. Our laws and public opinion, and vast sums expended by timber owners prevent the setting of careless fires; but the railroad locomotives still scatter fire along their pathway through the woods. Let the railroads learn a lesson from the recent Montana fires that stretched along their lines on either side and crossed the rivers where they cross—fires that have destroyed millions of young pines that a few years hence would have yielded a freight of from $10 to $30 each tree for their transportation to market.

Let the loggers awaken to the fatal folly of allowing the first fire in their cuttings, and our legislators to the necessity of forest protection. Stop the first fire where land is only adopted to the timber crop.

Out in the West where our mountains are the highest; where our streams spring from the eternal glaciers and are fullest when the weather is warmest; where water falls the farthest; where our soils are most productive when moistened;where our fruit is the finest; where trees grow the largest; where our hills contain coal, iron, silver, copper, and gold; where our ocean is the greatest and our fisheries are most prolific, our people are all Conservationists. They are for Conservation that is practical and adapted to their peculiar conditions; Conservation that shall develop and utilize their resources, and that shall yield the greatest good to the greatest number, and to the future as well as the present.

Where all things are on so grand a scale, the people cannot be small and narrow. They are as are their woods, their mountains, and their torrents, grand and active; and they are to be trusted. They will solve the problem of conserving their timber. They will keep out fires. They will enact just tax laws. They will guard their holdings. They will encourage new growth. They will be first to awaken to the best methods of forest Conservation adapted to their needs. They will solve the problem of conserving our western forests.

William S. HarveyPhiladelphia

Professor Willis L. Moore, Chief of the United States Weather Bureau, in his address before the Atlantic Deeper Waterways Convention in Providence, September 1, 1910, made the statement that the waterways were in no way affected by the forests; that he had records made for many years that clearly prove that the waterways have in no way been affected by the acts of man; that he was aware that he would destroy a popular impression by making this statement, and that he based his statement upon the facts as he knew them. The following eminent men in articles published inAmerican Forestry Magazinefor April, 1910, take exception to and refute the statements and claims made by Professor Moore (and which he had previously expressed): Professor Filibert Roth, University of Michigan, Forester; Professor L. C. Glenn, Vanderbilt University, Geologist; and Professor George F. Swain, Harvard University, Engineer. These gentlemen represent geology, forestry, and engineering, and their training, knowledge, and experience qualify them to speak intelligently and with authority on this question of the influence and effect forests have upon streams.

Mill owners and operators on various rivers in New England have practical demonstration that denuding or partial denuding of the forests on the head-waters of the stream on which they are dependent for power has seriously impaired the uniformity of flow and lessened the amount of power which they are able to secure for the same number of days in a year: that denuding also allows the rainfall to run off rapidly, causing erosion, which erosion is filling and choking the streams and rivers and in seasons of flood depositing silt in valleys which have heretofore been of agricultural value, thus largely impairing or destroying their fertility. This condition equally applies to various streams and rivers in other sections of the United States. It is moreover denied and refuted by the greatest financial and manufacturing interests, who have spent and are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the development of electric power on the waterways of the United States. They have in their employ the most competent engineers known, who have investigated the entire situation, studied the maximum and minimum rainfall for a long period of years, and conditions influencing the territory embraced on the streams and rivers upon which they propose to make and are making and have made developments. These great interests, vital to commerce and trade, emphatically state that the flow of streams is affected by the forest cover, and that they are most anxious and are earnest in efforts to have the forest cover protected in all territory in which they operate, claiming that if the hillsides or mountains on the headwaters of water-sheds are denuded the volume of power will be so diminished, impaired, or destroyed that the value of the bonds issued for the development of these powers, and heretofore considered one of the safest and most desirable investments, will be seriously imperilled.

In addition to the authorities above named, and to whose articles I have referred, there are others who have refuted and contradicted Professor Moore from his own premises and data. His Excellency M J. J. Jusserand, Ambassador from France, publicly stated the absolute principle: "No forests, no waterways." Without forests regulating the distribution of water, rainfalls are at once carried to the sea, hurried sometimes, alas! across the country. After having devastated the neighboring fields, the rivers find themselves again with little water and much sand; and with such rivers, how will you fill your canals?

The question is as clear as can be; do you want to have navigable rivers, or do you prefer to have torrents that will destroy your crops and never bear a boat?If you prefer the first, then mind your forests. If the Mississippi is the "Father of Waters," the forest is the father of the Mississippi. The French Ambassador, you will note, says, "We can tell you, for we know. France is now spending many millions of dollars to reforest the mountain-sides denuded many years ago, which have seriously affected her waterways."

Some of us feel it is unwise to take too seriously all the deductions and predictions that are made by academic, scientific, idealistic theorists, especially if the department of science with which they are most intimately identified relates almost exclusively to atmospheric conditions, which are still so imperfectly understood that they not infrequently elude prediction; though where the results of scientific deductions are proven correct and add to the fund of knowledge, they are deserving of our greatest respect and regard. We have much confidence, for example, in the conclusion of Gifford Pinchot and his staff of assistants, who have made a practical as well as scientific study of the effect of forest cover on the flow and supply of water in streams, which conclusions unqualifiedly refute the statements made by Professor Moore.

George Frederick Kunz, Ph.D.New York

The necessity for conserving the forests has been fully recognized, and it may be said that as to what is in the ground a clear and satisfactory distinction has been established between what must be conserved for the good of the people as a whole, and what can safely be left to the exclusive control, management, and ownership of individuals or corporations. In regard, however, to the material wealth that lies beneath the ground, whether diamonds, gold, silver, copper, oil, or clay, or, indeed, anything that has a material value and can be included as such in the domain of mining statistics, there has been and still is a considerable difference of opinion touching what should be done.

The existence of these materials beneath the ground is not usually evident, and the judgment of the best experts is frequently required to determine whether they exist in a given tract or not; on the other hand they may sometimes be casually found where their presence was not suspected. The Government of the United States still owns great tracts of land, and it is most important that the whole people of the United States should receive the full benefit of all the mineral wealth that is below the ground—the invisible wealth of the Nation, as it may be termed.

In order to avoid any collusion on the part of officials engaged by the Government to make investigations, or of those who, though no longer in the Government service, might learn the results of these investigations and might in some manner try to obtain control of these lands before the Government knew they had a distinct value, it would seem that a Conservation Act should be passed making it imperative that all minerals contained in any land beneath the surface should forever remain the property of the Government. With lands containing minerals, there should further be an assurance that the deposits will be effectively worked, thus preventing an entire mineral supply from being locked up for many years, so as to maintain an artificial value for the material. Again, little-understood minerals, or those that have been very little worked and yet may have a value in the future, such as bauxite, which is valuable in the manufacture of aluminum; monazite sand, which is used in the making of the Welsbach incandescent light; and carnotite, whose value as a radium ore has been discovered within the past ten years—should all be made to yield royalties to the Government.

It is very evident that many minerals not considered to have any commercial value today may prove to be of the greatest industrial value in the future. Furthermore, as we are likely to discover new elements, and new uses for old minerals, the Conservation Act might be made to provide for a payment of 20, 30, or even 60 percent of the total value of the mineral as taken from the ground in royalty to the Government of the United States, exactly as the South African Government exacts as a royalty 60 percent of the product of all the diamond mines within its territory. This would be a more generous treatment of private owners than was accorded them in some instances in the past. The French crown-deeds read in the Seventeenth Century that gold, silver, lapis-lazuli, etc, should belong exclusively to the crown. In reality, the Government should only sell to private owners what is in sight on the land and the right to what could be grown on it, not what is below the ground. The franchises of subways and tunnels and all mineral rightsshould be retained, as well as the right to condemn at a fair valuation any property needed for the development of a mine or a water-power.

The term "mineral" should apply to every substance found in the ground that is either a mineral or an associate of minerals, that is, rock, sand, clay, or even a swamp, that may have a value in the arts, sciences, agriculture, or any other monetary value. The word should be used in its broad sense and not in the more restricted scientific meaning of the word used by mineralogists, which is that a mineral must be a definite mineral compound.

The subterranean waters of the United States are a great and valuable asset of the Nation. Nearly all of our water companies sell water either for power or for consumption. As each owner of a piece of property ought to be entitled to an interest in the water under it, some provision in Conservation should be made for the actual ownership of the waters; not that they can be drained from under the property, for a series of springs could be threatened with ruin if this were done, just as were the famous springs in Saratoga. In other words Government lands should not be robbed of their subterranean waters to be in turn sold to those who have a joint right in them.

Franklin McCrayIndianapolis

All the territory west of Mississippi river was acquired by the Government by three means, purchase, conquest, and treaty. This territory, having been obtained by the diplomacy and blood and treasure of our common country, belonged to the people of the whole country, and was held in trust by the Federal Government for them. It was subject only to their call for settlement.

The charge is made that practically all the looting of the public domain is in the Louisiana purchase, the territory wrested from Mexico, that acquired from Great Britain by the Ashburton-Webster treaty in the settlement of our northern boundary line, and that purchased from Russia. This land, being held in trust by the Federal Government for the people and being subject only to their call for actual settlement, it is charged, has been plundered through fraud and corruption of the trustee, the Government of the United States, in collusion with the grantees, who have obtained vast tracts and withdrawn the same from settlement by floating them into a different channel than that for which the Government held them in trust. By this corrupt and fraudulent method, it is charged that these vast estates have been monopolized by corporate greed and accumulated wealth, and that no less than 6,000,000 acres are now being held by two individuals alone within the State of California.

If this be true, then, under a well-settled principle of law, the Government has conferred no title upon such grantees, because fraud vitiates all contracts, and courts of equity have complete power under proper proceedings to follow this property, thus fraudulently obtained, in its labyrinthian processes and seize it by judicial decree, lay its stern hand upon it and restore it to its rightful owners, the people of the United States, and float it anew into the channel of settlement where it rested prior to its spoliation. I suggest that this Congress petition the United States Congress to investigate the titles of these grantees and, if found to be fraudulent, the Department of Justice should be instructed to institute proceedings calculated to restore the land to its rightful owners.

[1]The full report by Mrs Wilkinson appears on later pages.

[1]The full report by Mrs Wilkinson appears on later pages.

[2]The members of the Resolution Committee were chosen by their respective State Delegations, and met at the call of a Temporary Chairman (and member-at-large), Ex-Governor George C. Pardee, of California, who was afterward chosen by the committee as Permanent Chairman. The full personnel of the committee follows:ALABAMA, John L. Kaul, BirminghamARIZONA, B. A. Fowler, PhenixARKANSAS, John A. Fox, BlythevilleCALIFORNIA, Frank H. Short, FresnoCOLORADO, P. T. Coolidge, Colorado Spgs.COLUMBIA (District of), W J McGee, WashingtonCONNECTICUT, A. Fletcher Marsh, New HavenFLORIDA, Cromwell Gibbons, JacksonvilleGEORGIA, C. L. Worsham, AtlantaIDAHO, Jerome J. Day, MoscowILLINOIS, Alfred L. Baker, ChicagoINDIANA, William Holton Dye, IndianapolisIOWA, Robert Hunter, Sioux CityKANSAS, Governor William R. Stubbs, LawrenceKENTUCKY, C. C. Grassham, PaducahLOUISIANA, Robert Roberts, Jr., MindenMAINE, Cyrus C. Babb, AugustaMARYLAND, Lynn R. Meekins, BaltimoreMASSACHUSETTS, C. A. Start, BostonMICHIGAN, Francis King, AlmaMINNESOTA, E. W. Robinson, MinneapolisMISSISSIPPI, H. L. Whitfield, ColumbusMISSOURI, George B. Logan, Saint LouisMONTANA, F. L. Newman, HavreRudolph Van Tolbel, LewistownNEBRASKA, Woodruff Ball, ValentineNEW HAMPSHIRE, Geo. B. LeightonNEW JERSEY, Frederick W. Kelsey, OrangeNEW MEXICO, W. A. Fleming Jones, Las CrucesNEW YORK, J. S. Whipple, SalamancaNORTH DAKOTA, James E. Boyle, Grand ForksOHIO, Charles Lathrop Pack, ClevelandOKLAHOMA, Benjamin Martin, Jr., MuskogeeOREGON, M. A. Moody, The DallesPENNSYLVANIA, M. I. McCreight, DuboisRHODE ISLAND, H. A. Barker, ProvidenceSOUTH CAROLINA, E. W. Durant, Jr., CharlestonSOUTH DAKOTA, P. H. O'Neill, FaulktonTEXAS, S. H. Cowan, Fort WorthUTAH, Harden Bennion, Salt Lake CityVERMONT, George Aitkin, WoodstockWASHINGTON, George H. Emerson, HoquiamWEST VIRGINIA, I. C. White, MorgantownWISCONSIN, William Irvine, Chippewa FallsWYOMING, E. H. Fourt, Lander

[2]The members of the Resolution Committee were chosen by their respective State Delegations, and met at the call of a Temporary Chairman (and member-at-large), Ex-Governor George C. Pardee, of California, who was afterward chosen by the committee as Permanent Chairman. The full personnel of the committee follows:

ALABAMA, John L. Kaul, BirminghamARIZONA, B. A. Fowler, PhenixARKANSAS, John A. Fox, BlythevilleCALIFORNIA, Frank H. Short, FresnoCOLORADO, P. T. Coolidge, Colorado Spgs.COLUMBIA (District of), W J McGee, WashingtonCONNECTICUT, A. Fletcher Marsh, New HavenFLORIDA, Cromwell Gibbons, JacksonvilleGEORGIA, C. L. Worsham, AtlantaIDAHO, Jerome J. Day, MoscowILLINOIS, Alfred L. Baker, ChicagoINDIANA, William Holton Dye, IndianapolisIOWA, Robert Hunter, Sioux CityKANSAS, Governor William R. Stubbs, LawrenceKENTUCKY, C. C. Grassham, PaducahLOUISIANA, Robert Roberts, Jr., MindenMAINE, Cyrus C. Babb, AugustaMARYLAND, Lynn R. Meekins, BaltimoreMASSACHUSETTS, C. A. Start, BostonMICHIGAN, Francis King, AlmaMINNESOTA, E. W. Robinson, MinneapolisMISSISSIPPI, H. L. Whitfield, ColumbusMISSOURI, George B. Logan, Saint LouisMONTANA, F. L. Newman, HavreRudolph Van Tolbel, LewistownNEBRASKA, Woodruff Ball, ValentineNEW HAMPSHIRE, Geo. B. LeightonNEW JERSEY, Frederick W. Kelsey, OrangeNEW MEXICO, W. A. Fleming Jones, Las CrucesNEW YORK, J. S. Whipple, SalamancaNORTH DAKOTA, James E. Boyle, Grand ForksOHIO, Charles Lathrop Pack, ClevelandOKLAHOMA, Benjamin Martin, Jr., MuskogeeOREGON, M. A. Moody, The DallesPENNSYLVANIA, M. I. McCreight, DuboisRHODE ISLAND, H. A. Barker, ProvidenceSOUTH CAROLINA, E. W. Durant, Jr., CharlestonSOUTH DAKOTA, P. H. O'Neill, FaulktonTEXAS, S. H. Cowan, Fort WorthUTAH, Harden Bennion, Salt Lake CityVERMONT, George Aitkin, WoodstockWASHINGTON, George H. Emerson, HoquiamWEST VIRGINIA, I. C. White, MorgantownWISCONSIN, William Irvine, Chippewa FallsWYOMING, E. H. Fourt, Lander

[3]The corrected list appears elsewhere (pageiv).

[3]The corrected list appears elsewhere (pageiv).

[4]The reports submitted by States as mentioned in the responses to the Call of States are printed in the Supplementary Proceedings, beginning on page327, and are entered in the Contents and Index of the volume.

[4]The reports submitted by States as mentioned in the responses to the Call of States are printed in the Supplementary Proceedings, beginning on page327, and are entered in the Contents and Index of the volume.

[5]The formal report for Ohio appears in the Supplementary Proceedings.

[5]The formal report for Ohio appears in the Supplementary Proceedings.

[6]In the opinion he held that the plaintiff was entitled to judgment, declaring the Brooklyn Cooperage Company and Cornell University contract void, and directed the University to convey to the State of New York the 30,000 acres constituting the College Forest.

[6]In the opinion he held that the plaintiff was entitled to judgment, declaring the Brooklyn Cooperage Company and Cornell University contract void, and directed the University to convey to the State of New York the 30,000 acres constituting the College Forest.

[7]The relative prices of forest lands sixty years ago and now may be judged from the fact that in 1850 a Law (Chapter 250) was passed providing that the State should not sell public land on Raquette river for less than 15 cents an acre. The State is now paying over $7.00 an acre for the same kind of land.

[7]The relative prices of forest lands sixty years ago and now may be judged from the fact that in 1850 a Law (Chapter 250) was passed providing that the State should not sell public land on Raquette river for less than 15 cents an acre. The State is now paying over $7.00 an acre for the same kind of land.

[8]Declaration of Colonel David McClure in the Constitutional Convention of 1894.

[8]Declaration of Colonel David McClure in the Constitutional Convention of 1894.


Back to IndexNext