be excessive, nor its supply inadequate to meet the home demand. The establishment of lumbering as a sound and stable industry will be attained only when it reaps, as well as harvests, the crop upon which its existence depends.
Of the indirect returns from conservative forest management, the most valuable is its influence upon the flow of streams. The arid lands comprise two fifths of the area of the United States, and cover nearly all the western half of the continent. Their character varies with the amount of rainfall, ranging from true desert conditions to those capable of supporting a nomadic kind of grazing and a form of farming so low in its production that it promises little in inviting settlement. In his timely and forcible volume, 'Irrigation in the United States,' Mr. Newell states that the utilization of the vacant public lands can come about only through irrigation, or the artificial application of water to the soil, to supplement the scanty rainfall or to supply its absence. The area within the arid region which is irrigable is estimated at not less than 60,000,000 acres. The streams which may be diverted for purposes of irrigation rise in the forests, whose conservation is necessary to the maintenance of an abundant and sustained supply of water.
The passage of the Irrigation Bill, on March 1, 1902, paves the way for the adequate reclamation of the public lands. It sets aside receipts aggregating about $5,000,000 per year, received from the sale of lands within the arid region, and provides that they shall be applied to the construction of works for water conservation. The success of this great undertaking may be assured only through the preservation of the forests which feed the streams available for purposes of irrigation. The careful protection of these forests can be accomplished only by the federal government, through their management as national forest reserves. The exclusion from settlement of forest lands comprising the catchment basin of streams important for irrigation began under President Harrison, and has resulted in the creation of fifty reserves, with a total area of 53,107,685 acres, or 82,981 square miles. These are administered with a view to timber production only in so far as their more valuable function of water conservation is not affected. Their management is still hampered by its distribution among three branches of the government, and by difficulty in the rapid building up of a force of thoroughly trained and effective executive officers. There has, however, been progress in the prevention of timber theft and of fire, and the development of the fullest usefulness of the forest reserves is beset by no insurmountable difficulties. Their extension to include all large bodies of mountainous forest within or tributary to the arid region is essential to the fullest development of
