Omaha daily bee., 1897-03-03
FOREST RESERVES.
Argument ina Favor of Turning Them
Over to the States.

Chicago TimeS-Herald.
Under the act of congress of March 3,
1891, the president of the United States is
authorized to set apart and reserve, in any
state or territory having public land bear
ing forests, any part of the public lands,
wholly or in part covered with timber
as public reservations. In pursuance OF this
law President Harrison established seven
teen reservations comprising II SOC, 900 acres
of land in the states of Colorado, New Mex
leo, California, Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon
and Washington.
In like manner on the 22d of February
President Cleveland set apart thirteen ad-
.ditional reservations, aggregating 21,370, 400
acres, in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana,
Idaho, Washington, California and Utah.
This was done on the recommendation of a
forestry commission of the National Acad-
envy of Science, in which the secretary of
tho interior joined.
The people of the Black Hills, in South
Dakota, have been greatly stirred up in
consequence q, of the reservation made in
that region. and are protesting against it
on the ground that many settlers already
occupy a large portion Of the lands thus
set apart, and, moreover, that they are min
eral lands of great resources and therefore
not properly to be reserved. asH.
1t is also claimed that the commission
did not examine the lands at all prior to
making it's Recommendation
Where there is SO serious a protest there
certainly should be- a re-examination made
of the question, so that no wrong may be
done to the people.
But it is altogether doubtful whether the
forest reservation law ~accomplishes the OBJ
ject intended. 1t is not the timber value of
these forest areas which is the chief con
sideration, great as that may be. The prin-
cipal and enduring benefit to be derived
from the protection of these forests is the
conservation of moisture, so that the noun
tain streams will not be torrents once a
year, but gradual feeders all the time of the
rivers. The great problem of the arid re
gion wherein these reservations lie is water
and its preservation for agricultural pur-
poses. Without water the land is useless,
and without the preservation of the forests
there can be no sufficient water supply.
Now, here is where the general govern
ment supervision of the forests fails. A
few timber thieves here and there can be
prosecuted, but the great foe of the forests
Is not the AK but fire. A few years ago the
summit of the. Big Horn mountain in Wyo-
ming was a mass of fire, raging with vio-
lence for many days. Pefore it was eStin-
guiShed more timber was destroyed and
greater injury inflicted on the water supply
than wooismen could infict in a lifetime.
These forest fires are happening all the time,
and it is only by the most constant vigilance
and care that they can be prevented or linn
tied in their rayages. The government has
no body of foresters to patrol the forests,
but in the main depends upon a few
watchers, whose chief business it is to re-
port upon those who violate the timber laws.
These forests will never be preserved as
they should be until they are turned over
entirely to state control. The way TO save
the forests and the water and the arid region
is for congress to grant to each OF the states
in that region the public lands within its
borders, under such restrictions, of course,
as will assure their use for the purposes
of irrigation.
Such a policy would be far wiser than this
really impracticable scheme for forest reser-