Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/186

 168 John Minto. to make the land policy and the forest policy to agree and both subserve the wants of coming generations. President Roosevelt seems to perceive that what has yet been done is not sufficient to conserve the natural resources this already great country will soon have need of. He thinks, and says very forcibly, that continued production of forests is an essential condition of a continuance of the prosperity and progress of this nation. He says, truly I think: ''The forest policy of any country must be an essential part of Us land policy." He says again: "The * * * primary ob ject of the forest policy, as well as the land policy of tiie United States, is the making of prosperous homes. ' ' Again ho says: "You can start a prosperous home by destroying the forests, but you cannot keep it prosperous that way." The President is talking to a society of American foresters as though he expects them to impress the wisdom of the present policy upon the people of the mountain States. In the hope and the belief that it can be done, the writer is going to submit a plan by which it can be done, and be made by the people who have homes in the forest and make forestry the chief source of their prosperity: viz., give or sell the land for forest production. Say 160 or 320 acres is patented under the condition that one-tenth, sixteen or thirty two acres of land, may be cleared for other crops than timber. The timber farmer guards and harvests and improves the product. As very much of the forests contain open land, that may be passed for family use, for which it is most suitable. Or, if it is deemed no longer good public policy to give a homestead of timbered land, sell the land to he kept in forest, and then invest the purchase price, less the five per cent promiised the State npon its admission to the Union, in refor- esting overcut and abandoned, lands on the Atlantic or Ap- palachian States. Judging by the way men have risked reputation and mon«^y to attain timbered land unlawfully in the recent past, and to hold lands given as aid to railroad building, in contravention