The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-04

of cattle, sheep, horses and goats with out restriction. Such system, or rather such lack of system, means that the range is not so much used as wasted by abuse. As the west settles the range becomes more and more over-grazed. Much of it can not be used to advantage unless 1t is fenced, for fencing is tho only way by which to keep in check the owners of nomad flocks which roam hither and thither, utterly destroying the pastures and leaving waste behind so that their presence Is incompatible with the presence of home-makers. The exist ing fences are all illegal. Some of them represent the improper exclusion of actual settlers. allual home-makers, from ter ritory whioG Is usurped by great cattle companies Some of them represent what Is in itself a proper effort to use the range for those upon the land and to prevent It's use by nomadic outsiders. All these fences, those that are hurtful and those that are beneficial, are alike illegal and must come down. But it is an out rage that the law should necessitate such action of the part of the adminis- tration. The unlawful fencing of public lands for private grazing must be stopped, but the necessity which occas- stoned it must be provided for. The fed eral government should have control Of the range, whether by permit or lease, as local necessities may determine Sueh control could secure the great beneht Of legitimate fencing, while at the same time securing and promoting the settlement of the country. In some places 1t may be that the tracts of range adjacent to the homesteads of actual settlers should be allotted to them severally or in common for the summer grazing of their stock. Elsewhere it may be that a lease system would serve the purpose the leases to be temporary and subject to the rights of settlement and the amount charged being large enough merely to permit of the efficient and beneficial control of the range by the government, and of the payment to the county of the equivalent of what 1t would otherwise receive in taxes The destruction Of the public range will continue until some such laws as these are enacted. Fully to prevent the fraud in the public lands which, through the Joint action of the interior depart ment and the department of justice, we have been endeavoring to prevent, there must be further legislation. and especi- ally a sufficient appropriation to permit the department of the interior to examine certain classes of entries on the ground before they pass into private ownership. The government should part with It's title only to the actual home-maKer, not to the profit-maker who does not care
 
 secure the rights and guard the interests of the small ranchman the man who blows and pitches hay for himself It IS this small ranchman, this actual settler and home maker. who In the long run ls most hurt by permitting thefts of the public land In whatever form
 Forests.
 Optimism is a good characteristic but if carried to an excess it becomes foolish- ness We are prone to speak Of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so. The mineral wealth of the country the coal. iron, oil, gas, and the like, does not reproduce itself ana there- fore is certain to be exhausted ult/nate- Iy; and wastefulness in dealing with it today means that our descendants will feel the exhaustion a generation or two before they otherwise would But there are certain other forms of waste which could be entirely stopped-the waste Of lobby washing. for instance, which is among the most dangerous, of all wastes now in progress in the United States, is easily preventable, so that this present enormous loss of fertility Is entirely un- necessary The preservation or replace ment of the forests is one of the most important means of preventing this loss. We have made 8 beginning in forest pre- servation, but it Is only a beginning. At present numbering is the fourth greatest industry in the United States; and yet, so rapid has been the rate of exhaustion of timber in the United States in the past. and rapidly is the remainder being exhausted, that the country is uu- ouestionably on the verge of timber famine. which will be felt in every house. hold in the land. There has already been rise in the price of lumber. but there is certain to be Il more rapid and heav- fer rise in the future. The present an nual consumption of lumber is certainly three times as great as the annual growth; and if the consumption and growth continue unchanged, practically all our lumber will be exhausted in another generation, while long before the limit to complete exhaustion is reached the growing scarcity will make itself felt in many blighting ways upon our national welfare. About 20 per cent of our for ested territory is now reserved In na- tional forests; but these do not include the most valuable timber lands, and in any event the proportion is too small to expect that the reserves can accomplish more than a mitigation of the trouble which is ahead for the nation. Far more drastic action is needed Forests can be numbered so as to give to the public the full use of their mercantile timber with out the slightest detriment to the forest, any more than 1t is detriment to farm to furnish a harvest so that there Is no parallel between forests and mines, which can only be completely used by exhaus- tion But forests. if used as all our for ests have been used in the past and as most of them are still used. will be either wholly destroyed or so damaged that many decades have to pass before eff fectlve use can be made of them again. All these facts are so obvious that 1t is extraordinary that it should be neces- sary to repeat them. Every business man in the land, every writer in the news papers, every man or woman of an or dinary school education, ought to be able to see that immense quantities of timber are used in the country, that the forests which supply this timber are rapidly being exhausted. and that, If no change takes place. exhaustion will come com paratively soon, and that the effects of il will be felt severely in the every day life of our people. Surely, when these facts are so obvious, there should be no delay in taking preventive measures. Yet we seem as a nation to be willing to pro- ceed in this matter with happy go-lucky indifference even to the immediate fu- ture 1t is this attitude which permits the seif-interest of very few persons to weigh for more than the ultimate in terest of all our people. There are per sons who find it to their immense pecu- niary benefit to destroy the forests by numbering. They are to be blamed for thus sacrificing the future of the nation as whole 10 their own self-interest of the moment; but heavier blame attaches to the people at large for permitting such action, whether in the White noun tains. in the southern Alleghenies. or in the Rockies and Sierras. big numbering company, impatient for immediate returns and not caring to look far enough ahead
 will often deliberately destroy all the