To accomplish these reforms will take law-making and law-enforcing. However well we study existing conditions and legislate upon the premises they furnish, success depends upon competent application of the laws and their improvement as conditions change. It is a bitter reproof to us of the West that Eastern states, with forest and water resources insignificant compared to ours, have gone so much farther in securing the services of trained men to study these questions and to guard both private and public interests. The very first step should be to get competent trained state foresters who will devise wise measures, protect us from unwise ones, and educate lumbermen and public alike to the common need of action. We pay cheerfully for every other kind of public service, for geologists, veterinarians, insurance commissioners, barber examiners, and what not. But the two things we must have—wood and water—we leave pretty much to take care of themselves, and they aren't doing it and never will.
The essentials of a wise state forest policy, based not on theory but on successful experience elsewhere, are as cheap as they are simple. Where tried they have never been abandoned. If they pay elsewhere, can we afford not to try? Following is the framework of a code demanded by the situation in every Western state. Some already approach it, but none goes far enough:
ESSENTIALS OF EFFECTIVE STATE FOREST CODE
1. A State Board of Forestry selected with the single view of insuring the most competent expert judgment on the matters with which it deals. In other words, the board should not be political, but appointment by the Governor should be restricted to responsible representatives nominated by the interests most familiar with forest management, such as state forest schools, lumbermen's associations, forest fire associations, conservation associations and the resident Federal forest service.
2. A trained state forester, wholly independent of politics. Executive ability and practical forest knowledge should be considered essential, also scientific training. He should have one or more assistants of his own appointing.
3. A liberally supported forest fire service, in which the state forester has ample latitude in coöperation, financial and otherwise, with all other agencies in the same work.
4. A systematic study of forest conditions to afford basis of both intelligent administration and desirable further legislation.
5. A system for active general popular education, with specific advice to individuals in proper forest management.
6. Application of forestry principles to the management of state-owned forest lands and the purchase of cut or burned over land better suited for state than for private forestry. This is to furnish educative examples of conservative management as well as to maintain state revenue and proper forest conditions.
7. Improvement and strict enforcement of laws against fire and trespass, with penalty for neglect to enforce them by any officer who is paid to do so.