Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/29

Rh awaiting trial, which will, when judgment is obtained, very much increase the amount already recovered. The details are presented in the report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. The prosecution of depredators on the public timber lands has, therefore, been a well-paying business to the government.

This, however, is the least important result of the operations of the department in this respect. Of far greater consequence is the fact that the investigation of trespasses and the prosecution of depredators, carried on with vigor and earnestness, although with very limited means, have created in some of the localities where the depredations had been most extensive, a wholesome respect for the law, and strengthened the desire of good citizens, who have the interests of the country at heart, to see the unlawful destruction of the public timber cease. It is indeed gratifying to observe that the interest in this important question which the measures adopted by the government have awakened, and the discussions which have followed, have greatly weakened the opposition which existed at the beginning to the policy pursued by this department. Even in the States and Territories where the timber necessary for domestic and business purposes can be obtained only from the public lands, unless imported from a distance, a healthy public opinion seems to be springing up which recognizes that an indiscriminate destruction of the forests, and especially the denudation of the mountain slopes of the timber growth covering them, must inevitably result in incalculable and irreparable injury to the economical interests of those States and Territories, and become ultimately destructive to the prosperity of their people.

This is an observation which by painful experience has forced itself upon every civilized nation on earth; and it is to be hoped that the American people will become mindful of it while it is yet time to remedy the evil already wrought by the reckless improvidence which has so far prevailed. `

While the measures taken by this department have undoubtedly produced a good effect in many localities, it must be kept in mind that the limited means allowed by Congress permitted only a comparatively small field to be covered by its operations. The greatest danger of a wholesale destruction of our forests, and of the disastrous consequences that destruction will bring after it, exists in those States and Territories where the timber indispensably required for domestic use and local industry must be taken from the public lands, there being no timber lands in private possession, and the public lands being mostly unsurveyed and not subject to purchase or entry.

In my last annual report I discussed the inadequacy of the laws enacted by the last Congress “authorizing the citizens of Colorado, Nevada, and the Territories to fell and remove timber on the public domain for mining and domestic purposes,” and providing “for the sale of timber lands in the States of California and Oregon and in Washington Territory.” The opinion I then ventured to express, that the first of these acts would be