Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-16
TO STOP THE WASTE
OF the Finest Trees which Still Re-
main ON Public Lands.

The protection Of our forest reserve as
proposed in a bill introduced by Mr.. McRae
(ArkD, chairman Of the House public lands
committee. was the subject of an interest
Ing hearing by the committee today the ap-
parent result Of which was to convince the
members that something must be done at
once to prevent the United States from be-
coming treeless. arid waste.
Mr.. Bowers. assistant commissioner of the
general land office, was the first speaker in
favor Of the measure He was heartily In
favor of the provision to do away with free
cutting. The provision empowering the Sec
rotary of the Interior to sell, under GER
tain restrictions. cutting privileges. which
would yield the government reasonable
commercial value for the timber cut. should
be applied.
The companies which cut the timber had
acknowledged its value. and were willing
to pay for the privilege. There were now
100000 or 10.OUO,0OO acres of forest re-
serve on which 1t was hoped to establish
a good cutting system. Cutting properly
done was beneficial and the department
hoped to inaugurate such a system which
would preserve the reserve and yield q
revenue to the government Under the pres
ent permit system cutting was done in all
fashions The department regulations were
good, but they could not be properly en-
forced. owing to the limited number Of
agents dllOWeu Dy law, ana tnc uldIlIOiu
duties imposed upon them. There were
now thirty-four of them in the field, and
they would have to be discharged by Janu-
airy unless the urgent deficiency bill be-
tries show that forest reserves were a
source of revenue, and We should have q
similar system.
New York's Experience.
Col. w. +. Fox. superintendent of forestry
for the state of New York, spoke OF the
New York state regulations. In his state
cutting privileges were sold. The system
had proven beneficial. 1t had preserved the
forests and yielded a revenue much larger
than was required for the support of the
bureau OF forestry. The wisdom of the
system was shown by the fact that they
were now selling cutting privileges on lands
that were cut twenty years ago.
Mr. Fernow, chief Of the division Of forest
~ OF the Agricultural Department. advocat-
ed the passage of the bill and spoke briefly
OF the advantages to be derived from 1t. For
eighteen years he had been connected with
forestry work in Prussia. In Europe the
forests were preserved and cultivated as a
crop. Here the necessity for such care had
not before arisen, but the time had now
come to shut the gate on indiscriminate cut
ting. He touched upon the necessity Of pre-
serving the forest cover on mountain sides
for the protection of the low lands at their
base In France the mountain sides had
been robbed Of this protection and the gov
eminent had spent over SSO.OOO,OOO in the
last thirty years in restoring 1t.
Chairman McRae tharked those present
for the interest they had taken in the mat
ter and added that he considered the ques-
ton of protecting our forest reserve one of
the most important that the coming gener-
alton would have to deal with. The COM
mittee directed Mr.. McRae to call the bill
up in the House on Monday next (suspen-
sion day..