homes thereon. We now perceive that the public land policy, as it applies to tillable land, should be different from the policy that determines the disposition of timber and coal lands. The man who acquires tillable land usually expects to go upon it and make it productive. The man who acquires timber land hopes to sell it to some large corporation. The corporation, founded by men who foresee a scarcity of timber, expects to hold the timber hind until it has greatly enhanced in value. The wait may be ten. twenty-five or fifty years, but the certainty of advancing value makes the purchase a safe speculative investment. Much of the timber land goes into the possession of corporations that do not desire it for milling purposes. but expect to make a profit by reason of the future conditions of supply and demand. Tillable land goes to the people—timber land to the capitalistic few who expect to levy tribute upon the people who eventually must buy the timber in the form of lumber.
Out of this difference in the character and the purposes for which it is acquired has grown the forest reserve policy, which contemplates the reservation of lands not suited to homebuilding but which are either valuable for present growth of timber or may become valuable when trees now young reach maturity. To prevent wanton destruction of timber, young and old, and to retain ownership in the Government, is the end to be accomplished by the forest reserve policy. At no time has the reserve policy contemplated the withholding of lands suited to settlement or the withholding of timber needed for the manufacture of lumber. The forest reserve policy therefore includes neither the retarding of settlement nor the hampering of the lumber industry. Incidentally, the forest reserve policy extends to the regulation of grazing on a reservation, the building of roads, cutting of timber, etc.
It would be easy to foresee that the forest reserve idea would meet strong opposition from those persons who wish to acquire timber lands and those who wish to graze their cattle upon the public domain unrestricted. The capitalist with money to invest can see no good in a forest reserve. The cattle owner who feels confident of getting his share of the range, if left to his own devices entirely, has no word of commendation for a system of regulation which guarantees to a weaker cattleman a just share of the public range. One would expect, too, that the great majority of the people, who have no interest except that possessed by every citizen, would favor the forest reserve system, for it proposes to retain for them the vast wealth that is theirs.
That there has been strong opposition to the forest reserve idea is due in part to the abuses which were permitted to grow up in it, chief among them the scripping evil, which enabled large corporations to exchange their worthless lands for good and still retain their good lands within a reserve. In a few instances some lauds may have been included in a forest reserve which should have been omitted. This, with some inconvenience in securing grazing permits, may have caused some opposition to the reserves. But, in the main, the fight now being waged in the public lands convention at Denver against the policy of conserving the public lands has its origin in the selfish desires of men who want free timber or free range. The forest system undoubtedly has its faults, but its defects are not serious enough to justify throwing down the lines of the reservations and permitting all who wish to rush upon the last of the timber lands, seizing them in sections and townships to hold until the needs of the people and the concentration of control shall enable the holders to dictate the price of lumber There are some indications of an effort on the part of the timber interests to control the convention and determine its expressions upon public land questions. If such a movement has been undertaken and should succeed, the opinions voiced by the convention would have but little weight with the people. On the contrary, it would tend to make them more than ever supporters of the policy which is designed to retain for the people the land that belongs to them.
The argument offered that the creation of a forest reserve withholds land from taxation is a shallow one. If a timber syndicate can afford to buy a township of timber and pay taxes on it for ten years in order to make a profit on the advance in value, cannot the people afford to retain that same land and go without the taxes in order to realize the profit on the advance in value? Wherein are the people gainers if they lose the large profit represented by growing value, and gain the small amount of money paid in the form of taxes? And more—wherein have the people profited if they sell the standing timber to a speculator today and buy it back from him ten or twenty years hence at many times the price he paid? If a sawmill proprietor needs logs for his mill, let him buy from the people's supply of timber at prices that prevail today; but let him not buy the timber in large tracts at present prices to hold until he can exact from the people a much larger price because he controls the supply.
The forestry policy of the National Government, more popularly known as President Roosevelt's forestry policy, is all that stands in the way of ultimate annihilation of the American forests, according to the arguments presented by Assistant Forester Sherrard, in an article appearing in the Agricultural Yearbook for 1906.
The forestry question has been argued pro and con for such a long time that its main features are well understood, but the subject has never been discussed from a practical business standpoint more clearly than in the article in question. In his paper entitled "National Forests and the Lumber Supply." Mr. Sherrard reviews briefly the history of Eastern forests, showing that Maine and New York, once the great lumber centers of the United States, long ago dropped out of sight as lumber producers when their forests were
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