Why then should history repeat itself on this subject in America?
As early as 1832, the wisdom of Mehemet Ali saw the cause of the poverty and distress, and applied the only remedy that ever has or ever will restore life-sustaining conditions, and commenced re-establishing forests on the sand plains of upper Egypt—Abyssinia and the slopes of the mountains—at the rate of one hundred thousand acres annually.
Trees, like beasts and birds, at one time existed in such vast and apparently incalculable numbers that it seemed improbable their presence could be diminished sufficiently to give them importance or value. To have trees removed by any means was looked upon by the owner of the soil as a favor; and those having charge of the public domain felt pretty much the same way. But to the man of three-score and ten years it is astonishing how soon the great forests have disappeared, or become so valuable and inviting as to tempt the mercenary to steal and the rewarded public official to permit. Trees have a value to every form of life—a value above the lumber they may produce or the moneyed wealth they may bring the possessor. It has for thousands of years undergone practical demonstration that forests determine the climatic conditions of any given country, and for this reason forests form an indispensable basis for agriculture, manufacture and commercial industry. They also bear a near relation to the health, wealth and prosperity of a nation.
These facts being so universally admitted, it may seem strange that a government which has from its inception been so interested in the welfare of its subjects, and which has assisted and encouraged in various ways so many sources of wealth and industry, should have overlooked the forests, from which the nation is drawing larger amounts than from all other natural sources combined.
The government has ever been devoted to the interests of agriculture and manufacturing; and by premiums, by exemptions, by protections, by model farms, by grants, by bounties, by patent rights, by technical schools, and by introduction of superior animals and improved machinery, has fostered well these industries. It has not been at fault, either, in donating large sums in the construction of canals and railroads and for the improvement of rivers and harbors. It has even taken an interest in the clam and oyster, and has stocked the rivers and lakes with young fish, that the devastation of these natural sources of wealth may be compensated thereby, and perpetuated as a national trust; while the springs and brooks and streams, the climatic causes of disease, the necessary conditions for national wealth and national health—in a word, the importance of forests for the nation, for the land, for agriculture, for the perpetuation of rivers—has received little or no official recognition. Few persons are so destitute of foresight as not to see that the fires and thieves, and increasing consumption, if continued at the present rate, can not fail to make this a treeless waste, a desolate, uninhabitable country, at no very distant date. Is there no way by which the remaining beasts and birds and trees can be preserved? Must the civilization of the North-west permit the pirates of destruction to take and hold possession of all its natural endowments? The clubs have been after the pot-hunter with legal enactments, and have crippled, but never as yet have they succeeded in exterminating him. He is still destroying the remnants of game, and is at large in the public domain, seeking something to devour.
The general government should no longer postpone a definition of its policy regarding forests, rivers, and its millions of acres of arid lands. The American people have been slow to realize the drifting of this country toward a forest famine and its destructive results. On the subject of forestry, until recently, representatives have been politically dumb, and, no doubt, would have remained so much longer had it not been for the inspiration of a few men. In January, 1872, ex-Secretary Morton presented a resolution before the Agricultural Society of Nebraska to set apart one day in each year and consecrate it to planting trees. This day was christened “Arbor Day,” and is now observed by law and proclamation in thirty-one states; has entered our schools and colleges, and forestry forms part of the curriculum.
Wherever Arbor-Day has been observed it has awakened a sense of inquiry; has taught the children the names, nature, and usefulness of trees, with a lasting admiration and love for them. From the influences of Arbor-Day, Nebraska has more than a million acres of planted forests, and Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other Western States fast following the good example. With laws, plantings, and premiums; with books, schools, and colleges; with the hearts of workers in it, forestry has built up a healthy public sentiment that must be felt. The Eastern States are also awake and glistening with law officers to protect their woods from fires and thieves; and by large premiums and exemptions from taxation, have greatly promoted the interest of forestry in their respective states.
Even the state that sold her birth-right—one hundred and fifty billion feet of standing forest for nine hundred million dollars—is not without influence for good. All these noble acts of the states and of the people will be heard in time; for the government of the nation is not given to disregard the will of the people, and has ever shown a readiness to take the front and co-operate with the states in every good work. But there is something more required of a government—the representatives of the people must do more than simply respond to petitions. In a free republican government the people are both sovereigns and wards, and they expect those who assume legislative and executive powers of the nation to understand political economy sufficiently to manage correctly the finances and the natural wealth of the nation with intelligence and superior wisdom. And in this direction it would certainly prove a most laudable act to withdraw from sale or entry for a long period, if not perpetually, all remaining forests and all arid lands where the rain-fall is below twenty inches, and place the same under the management of the Secretary of Agriculture, with ample powers and appropriations to build up a grand system of forestry, surpassing in extent and wealth all similar institutions belonging to the monarchies of Europe combined.
Governor J. J. Stevens, in his final report of surveys for a railroad across the Rocky Mountains, called the attention of the government, in 1855, to the arid lands west of the Missouri river, between parallels forty degrees and forty-nine north latitude. He compared it in extent, climate, rain-fall, and other features, to the Steppes, which occupies about one-fifth of the Russian Empire, and quotes the “Commentaries of the Productive Sources of Russia” to sustain his statements:
“Among other peculiarities of the Steppes a very prominent and distinctive one is the absence of timber, ... and opinions differ greatly as to the possibility of wooding it anew.”