Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1877.djvu/22

XX sustained. I would therefore recommend the passage of a law prescribing a severe penalty for the willful, negligent, or careless setting of tires upon the public lands of the United States, principally valuable for the timber thereon, and also providing for the recovery of all damages thereby sustained.

While such measures might be provided for by law without unnecessary delay, I would also suggest that the President be authorized to appoint a commission, composed of qualified persons, to study the laws and practices adopted in other countries for the preservation and cultivation of forests, and to report to Congress a plan for the same object applicable to our circumstances.

I am so deeply impressed with the importance of this subject, that I venture to predict, the Congress making efficient laws for the preservation of our forests will be ranked by future generations in this country among its greatest benefactors.

A large majority of the lands west of the one hundredth meridian are unfit for agricultural purposes without artificial irrigation, and the area on which artificial irrigation appears possible is very small. The homestead and pre-emption laws are therefore practically inapplicable to lands of that class, for the simple reason that agricultural settlement on small subdivisions is impossible. Extensive tracts on the “plains,” however, can be made useful as pasturage for the raising of cattle; in fact, they are being used for that purpose on a large scale. The stock-raising interest on the plains is gaining immense proportions, but it is carried on upon the public domain without the authority as well as without the protection of law, and the government derives no benefit from such use of the public lands. Some system should be devised to make these lands a source of public revenue, and to put the enterprise of the citizens engaged in such pursuits upon a legal basis. The government directors of the Union Pacific Railroad quote, in their annual report to this department, a letter from a gentleman engaged in cattle-raising on the plains, of which the following is an extract: