The most urgent need of the national forest work is more ample provision of the funds necessary for adequate protection of the forests against fire. It is especially urgent that the work of constructing roads, trails, telephone lines, and other improvements needed for fire protection be extended much more rapidly than at present.
PROGRESS IN STATE FORESTRY.
A very great obligation rests upon the State governments in working out the problem of forestry. Organized fire protection under State direction, the establishment of a reasonable system of taxation of growing timber, honest and conservative management of State forest laws, education of woodland owners to better methods of forestry, and such practical regulation of handling private forests as may be required for the protection of the public, are problems which require the immediate action of all States.
While no State is as yet accomplishing all that it should, a number of them are making very rapid progress, and are giving as liberal money support as perhaps could be expected under the present conditions. The feature of State forestry which stands out most strongly is that a number of States have gone beyond merely passing forest laws, and have begun to provide the funds necessary to achieve practical results. At last it is beginning to be recognized that the prevention of fire is the fundamental necessity, and that this can be accomplished only through an organized public service. In order to make laws effective there must be adequate machinery to carry them out. The fundamental principle of fire protection is preparation. A forest region must be watched for fires, both to prevent their being started and to reach quickly and put out such as from one cause or another may get under way. The new State legislation recognizes this need, and already there has been inaugurated a measure of watchfulness in the season of greatest danger, through patrol or lookouts under State direction. During 1911, which was a banner year in the enactment of State legislation, laws related chiefly to fire protection were passed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin; while Colorado created the office of State Forester. Since the beginning of 1912 Maryland and New York have amended their forest laws, and Kentucky has passed its first complete law.
It is exceedingly gratifying that substantial progress is now being made in the South. Unfortunately, however, none of the Southern States except Maryland has hitherto been able to qualify to receive Federal aid and fire protection under the Weeks law. It is hoped that during the coming year progress will be made in those Southern States in which practically nothing has yet been done.
One of the matters to which the Conservation Congress and all other educational agencies should devote their efforts is to bring about the protection of private lands from fire and the extension to them of forestry methods. While some may say that this is a matter for which the owner is personally responsible, the fact remains that private owners will ordinarily not work out the forestry problem on their lands without the participation of the public in the form of public regulations, co-operation and assistance. This is recognized in some States, but others are doing nothing whatever in this field, and a good many which have made a small beginning are abundantly able to do vastly more than at present. It has usually happened that the securing of good forest laws and the establishment of a State Forest Service has been brought about by the efforts of a small group of interested men, and frequently through the efforts of a single individual who has been able to arouse the interest of the people in his State. Enough States in different parts of the country have initiated State forestry to make it comparatively easy for a State contemplating new legislation to benefit by what has been done elsewhere. All that is really required in the extension of State forestry is to find the man or men in each State who will take the leadership and follow up the matter until the Legislature acts. It would seem that in the heavily timbered States the lumbermen are the men who should be most vitally interested in the conservation of our forests. In some States timberland owners have participated very actively in bringing about State forestry, as for example, in Maine, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and some of the far Northwest States. In other instances the timberland owners have been indifferent and in some instances proper State forestry has failed on account of the attitude of the very men who should be foremost in promoting proper legislation. We need in each State not so much advice from the outside as a few patriotic citizens in whom the public has confidence and who will devote time and real effort to this public task. If the men can be found to do this preliminary work they will have no difficulty in securing competent assistance from other States and from the National Government.
THE ATTACK UPON FORESTRY.
At the same time that forestry has been making steady progress in constructive work and in public esteem, hostility to the national forest policy on the part of those who would substitute private for public control of these resources has become more determined under a new form. The early attacks upon this policy openly sought its overthrow. They came to nothing because the country was emphatically for the forests. At the present time those who attack the national forest policy commonly profess allegiance to the Conservation principle even while attempting to break it down. There is great danger that the public may not understand what is involved in measures whose purpose and inevitable effects do not appear on their face. Two such measures are the proposal to require the elimination from the forests of all lands capable of cultivation, on the plea that this will increase settlement, and the proposal to turn all the forests over to the States in which they lie, on the plea that this will increase their benefits to the people of these States. In both cases quite the contrary is true.
An amendment which was attached to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill last June, and which passed the Senate but was rejected by the House, would have required, had it become law, the opening to private acquisition under the homestead laws of all lands “fit and suitable for agriculture” within national forests, irrespective of their value for other purposes or of their importance for public use. The result would have been not to facilitate but to block agricultural development. It would also have been to transfer to powerful private interests timberlands, water power sites, and other areas, possession of which would tend to private monopoly of resources now under public control.
This measure is not called for in order that agricultural development of lands in national forests may take place. The Forest Service has consistently favored and sought to bring about agricultural settlement of all national forest lands which can be put to their highest usefulness by farming. It urged and obtained, seven years ago, the law which now permits the opening of such land. Under that law about one and a half million acres have been listed for entry by over twelve thousand settlers; and more will be listed as it becomes possible to list the land without defeating the very purpose of the law.