New-York tribune., 1878-06-08
GAIL HAMILToN-MR. SCHURz.
THE sTATEsMANsHIP OF GEOGRAPHY.

close serutiny and earnest contemplation 70 the
stately and majestic step of Mr. SchurZs Foresters
going forth their prineely way among the trees III
slow and solemn brightness, according TO the won
derful bill for such case made and provided by MI
Scburz will be panied to see that the whole
sixteen sections and nine octave pages con-
tain no provision for one of the most es-
sential duties of the sonorous and regal
Office of the FOrester,-the care and preser-
vation of game. While Mr.. Schurz has taken the
utmost pains to have every tree in North America
measured within an inch of its life, and while he
has charged his Foresters vgiantly to instruct the
frontersman into which particular pine or hemlock
be may strike his axe, the inexplicable Secretary
has suffered the long procession OF prare-dogs' pan
thers cayOes wildcats raccoons opossums' "ol'es'
foxes mountain-lion lynx, deer, elk, moose. Dear'
buffalo rattlesnake and sea-serpent to pass by OH
the other side Why has he made no effort to pre-
serve from the advancing rifle of civilization thls
shy and graceful gamef What is the use OF pre-
serving a tree unless you preserve also the gentle
laguar orouching in its branches to dart down and
break your neck with stroke of his swift caress
ing paw In this grand uprising to preserve the
timber of a Contradiction the mammoth pines OF
the Sierras down to the sage brush of the Eternal
PIains-Nr. Schurz win fail to read his title
clear to the name of tho great Reform Forester
if he permits these wild to without tax
and to be slaughtered without pay. The danger is
not only vast but imminent Already the bison can
barely keep their engagements with European
Princes who come over to hunt them. We are GER
tainly runnng short of jagua and threatened every
day with a corner in catamOunt. Mr. Schurz can
not be an hour too in taking their linear feet
and cubic contents and as they have
been old settlers ever since Columbus dis
covered America, and might have pre-
md
resent even the friendly Intervention of Mr. Schurzs
wandering carpetbaggers, would it not be wise for
him to add to his bill for the protection of game
Section H. that the Beasts shall not put themselves
into the false and unpatriotic attitude of attacking
Mr. Schnrz's foreign extraction by making game of
his Foresters
But with all these unaccOuntable omissions, the
poor Foresters will have a hard enough time of it
unless a considerable part of the population of this
country take to the woods. How many FOresters at
an annual compensation Of So, 500 each does Mr..
Schurz think it would require to cover the
area embraced within the public timbered lands
of the United States If there were 400
such Foresters, costing as they would. by Mr.
Schurz's BILL 81 100000 a year, no one of them
could properly travel his beat oftener than once
yearl So that even if Mr. Schurz had his Foresters
all drawn up in line and ON duty, like woodpeckers
peCklDE uOllOW Odh liCGS llOul CNCl VI
Florida. through all the States and Territories
where there are public lands till the end-man is
feebly heard as be
"Pipes on his pastoral bilock a anguid note"
among the dwarfed pines of Northern Alaska
OF the geld coast of Behring Straits, where
the last fOOt-passenger was Eugene Sues
Wandering Jew, and where l doubt not
Mr. Schurzs fast following Forester, whipping
his tapemeasure out of his chilled pocket to see if
the linear feet are up to the given diameter"
would find the print of the jews shoe nails under
of those very trees and reckon it quite sOciabe
like--TTRIBUNE, please send the bill for printing
this sentence to the State Department l-even then
Mr. Schurz would still be disappointed in the opera
tiOn of his law for single Forester in such dis
trict could only annoy and hinder and harass and
Irritate very small proportion of the settlers while
MOdOc might be scattering sparks from his pipe in
front of our Forester and a NeZ Perez could
be shooting grizzlies among the dry leaves in his
rear and Maine lumberman hewing in pieces Agag
to right of him, and the germ of a Puget Sound
steamer curvng up the skeleton RIBS of its keel to
left of him, and none of all this busy hum of in
dustry or this busy cracking of mischief penetrate
the solitude where the Forester aforesaid is plung
ing through the woods six months away
But if the Forester's visits must be like angels
few and far between, how welcome would they be
hent the strength of our new Territories lie dormant
awaiting the vvfying footsteps of these Foresters
Tramp tramp, across the land they go, measuring
put as they tread, boards by the thousand feet to
the incipent householder, wood by the cord to the
kquatter brOiling his breakfast a forked stick
also bought by the cord at price fixed by a cult-
waited gentleman, highly accomplished in music,
who never saw America till he was a grown man,
was always resident in cities, is on duty in
Washington and in every way, therefore, eminently
fitted TO estimate correctly the price of all kinds of
timber the remOtest frontiers Of the Republic. 1t
Is, indeed rather appalling Interpretation of Mr..
Schurzs idea of fitness that his own Foresters
whom he has directed in Section of his bill to abe
appointed with reference to their fitness by educa
tion and occupation for the duties of the Office"
are not to be allowed to fix the price of unhewn
timber or cord-wOod on the ground in Arizona or
IdahO but that Mr. Schurz, of course, account of
bis own superior fitness, reserves that function
specifically to himself in the seventh sec
tion Of his bill Nathless though held in
leash, he is still a Forester, and as sweetly
along the gay mead the daisies and cow
slips appear, so sweetly would this debOnair For
ester glide up to miners camp in the Rocky
Mountains Orarrest the unified of the woOdman
telling the timber for his first rude cabin, TIL the
"ftv Forester at So, 800 "per annum" should have
brought out his yard-stick to ascertain beyond a
peradyenture that by linear measure these en-
dangered trees are a given number of inches in
diameter at a point on the trunk which shall be
exactly two feet from the ground and until the
Forester shall further have pulled out his memo
tandum-boOk from his waistcoat pocket and read
out to the wOOdman aforesaid the list of prices
attached by the Secretary of the Interior to timber
by the acre. by the thousand feet, board-measure,
by the cubic foot, by the linear feet of trees
of given diameter, or by the cord. or by the beam
pole. or by the fshing-rOd by the skewer, OF by