The sole source of our fresh water is rainfall (including snow). From this source our running, standing, and ground waters are derived. The habitability of the country depends on these waters.

Through the observations and measurements of the Weather Bureau at some 4,000 stations our rainfall is known more accurately than that of any other equal area on the globe. The records furnished by Chief Willis L. Moore, interpreted and reduced by Henry Gannett, show a yearly mean of approximately 30 inches. The quantity falling on the land averages about 200,000,000,000,000 cubic feet per year; including the rainfall on water areas, it is 215,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. a The volume is ten Mississippi rivers.

The yearly rainfall on the more humid two-fifths of the country east of the ninety-fifth meridian (or what may be called the State Divide forming the eastern boundary of the Median States—North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas) is 043 40nearly 48 inches; the quantity about 140,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. On the semiarid fifth of our area in these Median States (or between the ninety-fifth and one hundred and third meridians) the rainfall averages 30 inches and aggregate over 40,000,000,000,000 cubic feet. The rainfall on the western two-fifths of the century, including our arid lands, averages about 12 inches, or some 35,000,000,000,000 cubic feet.

Of the total rainfall, over half is evaporated; about a third flows into the sea; the remaining sixth is either consumed or absorbed. These portions, which may be called, respectively, the fly-off, the run-off, and the cut-off, are partly interchangeable. About a third of the run-off, or a tenth of the entire rainfall, passes through the Mississippi. The run-off is increasing with cultivation and deforestation.

The 110,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of fly-off influences climate, and thus affects agriculture and other industries. Except in moderate degree through management of the land surface, it is beyond artificial control.

The 70,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of run-off is available for water supply, irrigation, navigation, and power. It is controlled in small part, and may be wholly controlled by proper means.

The remainder of the rainfall (or cut-off) is either consumed in plant growth and other chemical combinations, or else permeates the deeper strata and passes subterraneously into the sea. It is partly controlled, chiefly through farming and forestry; and the control may be much increased.

Of the 110,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of water annually evaporated, a reasonable use is made through the settlement and general industrial development of the country. It is adapted to largely increased population and industries.

Of the 70,000,000,000,000 cubic feet annually flowing into the sea, little more than 100,000,000,000 cubic feet, or one-seventh of 1 per cent, is taken from rivers and lakes and protected catchment areas for municipal and community supply and related purposes; less than 2 per cent (or some 10 per cent of that in the arid and semiarid regions) is used for irrigation; perhaps 5 per cent may be reckoned as in small use for navigation; and less than 5 per cent is utilized for power. It is estimated that 85 per cent to 95 per cent of the volume is wasted in freshets or destructive floods.

It is reckoned by Chief Leighton of the hydrographic branch of the Geological Survey that for municipal and community water supply there are protected catchment areas aggregating over 1,000,000 acres, and that fully $250,000,000 are invested in waterworks with nearly as much more in the appurtenant catchment areas and other lands. The population so supplied approaches 10,000,000; the annual consumption is about 37,500,000,000 cubic feet, or one-twentieth of 1 per cent of our run-off. The better managed systems protect the catchment areas by forests or grass; the water is completely controlled, the storm product is stored, and there is little waste save through overlavish use after the impounded flow enters the mains.

For irrigation it is estimated by Director Newell of the Reclamation Service that there are $200,000,000 in vested in dams, ditches, 044 41reservoirs, and other works for the partial control of the waters (in addition to the value of the land, which is virtually fixed by the availability of the water); and that 1,500,000,000,000 cubic feet, i. e., three-quarters of 1 per cent of our total rainfall, or 2 per cent of that on the western two-fifths of our area, are annually diverted to irrigable lands aggregating some 13,000,000 acres. Except in some cases through forestry, there is little effort to control the catchment areas, and few reservoirs are large enough to hold the storm waters; so that the waste in public and private projects exceeds 60 per cent, while less than 25 per cent of the water actually available for irrigation of the arid lands is restrained and diverted.

There are in mainland United States 287 streams navigated for an aggregate of 26,226 miles, a and about an equal additional mileage might be made navigable by waterway improvements. There are also 45 canals with a mileage of 2,189, besides numerous abandoned canals. b On lake and sound routes there is large traffic, but the navigation of rivers and canals is too small for definite record. Several hundred million dollars have been expended on special projects, yet, “in spite of large appropriations for their improvement, our rivers are less serviceable for interstate commerce to-day than they were half a century ago.” c The cost of water carriage averaging about one-fourth that of rail carriage, and our railway freightage during 1906 reaching 217,000,000,000 ton-miles at an average rate of 0.77 per cent, the shipping of one-fifth of our freight by water would have saved over $250,000,000 to our producers and consumers. Except through forestry in recent years, together with a few reservoirs and canal locks and movable dams, there has been little effort to control headwaters or catchment areas in the interests of navigation; and none of our rivers are navigated to more than a small fraction even of their effective low-water capacity.

The theoretical power of the streams is reckoned by Leighton at 230,000,000 horsepower. The amount now in use is computed by the Census Office at 5,350,000 horsepower, and the amount running over government dams and not used is estimated by the Chief of Engineers at about 1,400,000 horsepower. The amount now available at a cost comparable with that of steam installation is estimated by the hydrographic branch of the Geological Survey at 37,000,000 horsepower, and the amount prospectively available at 75,000,000 to 150,000,000 horsepower. The 37,000,000 horsepower to-day available exceeds our entire mechanical power now in use, and would operate every mill, drive every spindle, propel every train and boat, and light every city, town and village in the country. The nominal value is $20 per horsepower year; the price ranges up to $100 or $150. While the utilization of water power ranks among our most recent and most rapid industrial developments, little effort has been made to control catchment areas or storm waters in any large way for power development, though most plants effect local control through reservoirs and structures. Nearly all of the freshet and flood water runs to waste, and the low waters which limit the 045 42efficiency of power plants are increasing in frequency and duration with the increasing flood run-off.

The practical utility of streams for both navigation and power is measured by the effective low-water stage; the volume carried when the streams rise above this stage (75 to 90 per cent of the run-off) is not only wasted but does serious damage. The direct yearly damage by floods since 1900, as computed by Leighton, has increased steadily from $45,000,000 to more than $238,000,000; the indirect loss through depreciation of property is probably greater; while the largest loss is that arising in impeded traffic through navigation and terminal transfers.

The freshets are attended by destructive soil erosion. The soil matter annually carried into lower rivers and harbors or into the sea has recently been reckoned by Dole and Stabler at 783,000,000 tons. Its removal seriously reduces the productivity of upland farms, and increases channel cutting and bar building in the rivers. It is estimated that soil erosion reduces farm production 10 to 20 per cent; that the annual loss to the farms alone is $500,000,000; and that large losses follow the fouling of the waters and the diminished navigability of the streams.

Through imperfect control of the running waters, lowlands are temporarily or permanently flooded. It is estimated that there are in mainland United States 75,000,000 to 80,000,000 acres of overflow and swamp lands requiring drainage; that by systematic operations these might be drained and the water made available at moderate expense, and that they would then be worth two or three times the present value and cost of drainage, and would furnish homes for 10,000,000 inhabitants.

A part of the run-off lodges temporarily in lakes and ponds. It is estimated that the quantity of fresh water so stored (including the American portion of the Great Lakes) is about 600.000,000,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to three years; rainfall or nine years’ run-off. Over the water surface evaporation is rapid, and the influence of the lakes on climate is correspondingly large; and the natural reservoirs yield a water supply ordinarily requiring no control of catchment area. Some 6,000,000 of our people draw their water supply from lakes. All the and deeper lakes are navigated; they serve the chief part of our inland commerce by water.

A large part if that half of the annual rainfall not evaporated lodges temporarily in the soil and earth as ground water. According to texture, fire-dry rocks contain 1 to 3 per cent, air-dry rocks 5 to 25 per cent, and saturated rocks and earths 10 to 40 per cent of water, while the optimum moisture for plant growth in top soil ranges from 4 to 20 per cent; and it is estimated that the ground water to the depth of 100 feet (in which it is available for hand pumps and capillarity and deep-rooted trees) average 5 per cent over 1,000,000 square miles, 20 per cent over another third of the country, and 25 per cent over the remaining third, a mean of 16 2/3 per cent. This ground water forms a subsurface reservoir of over 1,400,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, equivalent to seven years’ rainfall or twenty years’ run-off. it is the essential basis of agriculture and most other industries, and the chief natural resources of the country it sustains forests and all other crops, and supplies the perennial streams and springs and wells used by four-fifths of our 046 43population and nearly all our domestic animals. Its quantity is diminished by the increased run-off due to deforestation and injudicious farming. Throughout the upland portions of eastern United State the average water table has been lowered 10 to 40 feet, so that fully three-fourths of the springs and shallower wells have failed and many brooks have run dry, while the risk of crop loss by drought has proportionately increased. Although the available ground water is subject to control by such treatment of soil and plant growth as to prevent freshets, little effort has been made to retain it or increase its volume, and it is probable that fully 10 per cent of this rich resource has been allowed to drain away since settlement began. The water of the deeper rocks (below 100 feet) supplies artesian and other deep wells, thermal and mineral waters, and large springs. It can be controlled in part, chiefly through the subsurface reservoir, and the supply may be much better utilized.

Of the 35,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of cut-off, the chief share is utilized in natural processes or by agriculture and related industries. On an average,plant tissue in annual growths is three-fourths and in perennial growths three-eights water; of human and stock food over 80 per cent is water, and in animal tissue to ratio is about the same; and water is the chief vehicle for the transmission of enteric and many other diseases. Since water is the medium for organic circulation, the plants and animals of the country yearly require an amount many times exceeding their aggregate volume. The average man of 150 pounds ingests over a ton (32 cubic feet, or 13 times his volume) of water each year, and an average bushel of corn requires over 700 cubic feet, or 22 tons, of water in the making, of which the larger part is evaporated and added to the fly-off. Even in the more humid sections of the country the productivity of the soil and the possible human population would be much larger if the rainfall were greater, leaving a wider margin for organic and other chemical uses. Except through agriculture and forestry, little general effort is made to control the annual cut-off, although some farmers in arid regions claim to double or triple the crop from given soil by supplying water just when needed and withholding it when not required.

Our stock of water is like other resources in that its quantity is limited. It differs from such mineral resources as coal and iron, which once used, are gone forever, in that the supply is perpetual; and it differs from such resources as soils and forests, which are capable of renewal of increase (provided the supply of water suffices), in that its quantity can not be augmented. It differs also in that its relative quantity is too small to permit full developed of other resources and of the population and industries depending on them. Like all other resources, it may be better utilized. It must be better utilized in order to derive full benefit from lands and forest and mines.

Although our rainfall of 215,000,000,000,000 cubic feet is 2,500,000 cubic feet per capita for a population of 86,000,000 (or 250,000 cubic feet, allowing for the 90 per cent waste), our growth in population and industries is seriously retarded by dearth and misuse of water. Fully a third of our territory (1,000,000 square miles, the 047 44areas of Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Austria, and Denmark combined) remains practically unoccupied and nearly unproductive by reason of aridity; while the public lands sufficiently humid for agricultural settlement are taken, the cost of transportation is limiting production, and our citizens are emigrating in thousands to other countries. With half our land area and the sam water, our capacity for population and industries would be great as now; with twice our water equably distributed over our present land, our capacity would be more than doubled.

Hitherto water has seldom been regarded as a resource to be exploited and conserved; it has been viewed vaguely as a prime necessity, yet merely as a natural incident or providential blessing. In its assumed plenitude the idea of quantity has seldom arisen, though the waste is least in those arid regions in which customs are better adjusted to the values and interrelations of water. Under the English common law, prevailing in eastern United States, the water is held appurtenant to the land; under the Code Napoleon, prevailing in Louisiana, it virtually appertains to the community; under the Spanish-Roman law, prevailing in western United States, water is subject to prior appropriation and beneficial use, and hence appertains primarily to the individual or family, while the land is essentially appurtenant to the water traversing it.

Not being deemed a resource when our fundamental law was framed, the waters were in no wise granted by the people, except as employed in commerce under federal authority; and since their value has arisen through the natural growth and orderly development of our population and industries, they seem in equity to belong to the people collectively. When required by municipalities or communities, water is restrained and used as a matter of course, and the cost of the appurtenant land and works for its control is ordinarily borne by taxation offset by water rates, i.e., the water is appropriated and exploited, and then conveyed or sold as a commodity in the interests of the population supplied; and in all cases the investment generally at first thought burdensome) proves either highly remunerative or inconsiderable in proportion to the benefits. When streams are controlled by individuals for power under federal grants, the power becomes a taxable commodity used, rented or sold, certain rights being retained by the Federal Government in the interest of the people; and power developed by the nation in works connected with commerce is used, rented, or sold. Some States recognize a residuary right of the people in the natural waters, or in the headwaters of streams used for water supply or navigation, and this recognition seems to be extending over the country; but the usage of the different sections is not uniform, the exercise of the right of the people generally varying with the aridity of the land or the density of the population.

Since most navigable streams bound or traverse different Commonwealths, while the waters forming them are unstable and essentially interstate, the States generally have refrained from waterway improvement, save through a few canals and drainage projects; and since the headwaters on which the navigability depends are commonly intrastate, the Federal Government has refrained from assuming more than a partial and ineffective control of the navigable waters. Thus a half-hearted and irresponsible or repressive policy has grown up; navigation has been neglected and allowed to decline; both control 048 45of the running waters and recognition of their value have been delayed, and private monopoly has been permitted to invade to their detriment the source waters on which the rivers depend.

Some of our navigable and other waters are international, and questions of both civil jurisdiction and control or use of the flow have been or are being composed by treaty or convention sanctioned by laws of the nations in interest. In the Great Lakes and Columbia regions each second-foot of flow corresponds to about a square mile of land surface drained—i. e., an outtake of 10,000 second-feet involves relations equivalent to titular questions affecting 10,000 square miles of territory; and in the Rio Grande and Rio Colorado regions each second-foot of flow is equivalent to 20 or 25 square miles of territory.

It is now recognized by leading statesmen and experts that navigation is interdependent with other uses of the streams; a that each stream is essentially a unit from its source to the sea; b that the power of the Federal Government to improve navigable streams extends above the limit of navigability; c and that the benefits of a comprehensive system of waterway improvement will extend to all the people in the several sections and States of the country. d

It is also recognized, through the unanimous declaration of the governors of the States and Territories adopted in conference with the leading jurists, statesmen, and experts of the country, that in the use of the natural resources the independent States are interdependent, and bound together by ties of mutual benefits, responsibilities, and duties. e

It has recently been declared by a majority of our leading statesmen that it is an imperative duty to enter upon a systematic improvement, on a large and comprehensive plan, just to all portions of the country, of the waterways and harbors and Great Lakes whose natural adaptability to the increasing traffic of the land is one of the greatest gifts of a benign Providence; while a strong minority of the nation's statesmen indorsed the movement for control of the waterways more specifically and in equally emphatic terms.

Within recent months it has been recognized and demanded by a majority of the people, through many thousand delegates from all of the States assembled in conventions in different sections of the country, that the waterways should and must be improved promptly and effectively as a means of maintaining national prosperity, the cost to be borne either by federal appropriations or by the issue of bonds.

The first requisite for waterway improvement is control of the waters in such manner as to reduce floods and regulate the regimen 049 46of the navigable rivers; the second is development of terminals and connections in such manner as to regulate commerce.

Most of the headwaters, especially in mountainous regions, may be so controlled by forestation as to diminish floods and ameliorate low waters, and at the same time clarify streams required for water supply and augment the subsurface reservoir of ground water. The effect of forest cover, with the attendant mulch, is to diffuse the rainfall and convert it into ground water, thereby reducing the surface run-off and holding the water back for use in plant growth or in seepage run-off through clear springs and brooks serving to maintain the rivers during dry periods, while the evaporation from the plants serves to increase the rainfall. Under proper management these benefits may be made self-sustaining through increased production.

Most lowland headwaters are on agricultural land, and are subject to control by judicious farming. Since no upland farm receives sufficient rainfall for the highest productivity, every acre should be made to utilize all the water reaching it. This may be effected by deep plowing and proper selection of crops on level land, by contour cultivation and terracing on rolling land, by dust-mulching on arid land, and by other devices of scientific farming. Thereby storm freshets may be cut off, the reservoir of ground water augmented, the springs and wells maintained, and the streams clarified and kept up during dry periods. The devices should be made not only self-supporting, but a source of increased production and profit.

About commercial centers and in populous districts, the paramount use of water is for domestic and manufacturing purposes; and the requisite supply should continue to be appropriated with the appurtenant lands and controlled under consistent State laws and federal regulations in the direct interest of the people. The catchment areas should be protected by proper covers of forest, grass, or other crops yielding reasonable returns, in such manner as to prevent both floods and soil wash with consequent pollution of the reservoirs and menace to life. When supplies are taken from lakes or the ground-water reservoir, both the maintenance of the public health and other uses of the waters (including navigation) should be duly weighed under the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. Wise administration demands that the water-supply projects be made so nearly as possible self-supporting through collateral benefits in order that potable water, as a prime necessary of life, may be placed within reach of all.

Refuse from household, farm, factory, mine, and city should be prevented from polluting streams, or extending needlessly into the ground water or contaminating the air. In rural households and communities refuse should be so treated as to yield high-grade fertilizer; urban sewage should be converted and utilized as a source of municipal revenue; and mine refuse should be treated as a by-product.

In arid and semiarid lands irrigation is (next to water supply) paramount, and all the water should be made available for the population dependent on each catchment basin. To this end the headwaters should be so controlled as to regulate the flow, the reservoirs should be large enough to store the surplus and prevent waste, and navigation should be limited to reservoirs and canals. Each irrigation project should be self-supporting; and any surplus or return 050 47water should remain in the natural channels available for other uses pending complete consumption in irrigation.

The navigable streams, partly controlled through their headwaters, should be further regulated by lock dams, movable dams, reservoirs, and other engineering devices found expedient in particular cases. They should be administered under federal regulations in the interest of the people, either independently or in cooperation with States, municipalities, communities, corporations, or individuals, as may be found expedient in particular cases. The projects should comprise such terminals and sites and such regulation thereof as may be essential to commerce. Drainage projects should be adapted, so far as practicable, to aiding in the control of the waters for navigation and related purposes.

When necessary, provision should be made for levees, jetties, hurdles, wing dams, revetment, mattressing, dredging, and other means of temporary and supplementary control of the waters and channels; and both the works and their sites should be acquired and protected under federal or State authority.

When consistent with other uses of the waters, fish should be propagated and protected in streams and lakes, and necessary fishways should be provided in connection with dams and other works; and State and federal laws relating to fish and fisheries in inland and coast waters should be unified.

N In the design and construction of works connected with water supply, irrigation, navigation, or the control of water for other purposes, consideration should be given to the power developed thereby and to the equity of the people in this value of the waters; and all benefits derived from power in connection with works installed at the public cost should be applied to the public welfare through protection against loss or diminution of the cost of additional works, or in other proper ways.

In considering the benefits to be derived from the 215,000,000,000,000 cubic feet of water annually received, the paramount use should be that of water supply; next should follow navigation in humid regions and irrigation in arid regions. The utilization of power from the navigable and source streams should be kept subordinate to the primary and secondary uses of the waters, though, other things equal, power development should be encouraged, not only to reduce the drain on other resources, but because properly designed reservoirs and power plants retard the run-off and so aid in the control of the streams for navigation and other uses.

The broad plan already framed by statesmen and experts and approved by the Executive should be put in effect. It provides for a system of waterway improvement extending to all of the uses of the waters and benefits to be derived from their control, including the clarification of the water and the abatement of floods for the benefit of navigation, the extension of irrigation, the development and application of power, the preventing of soil wash, the purification of streams for water supply, and the drainage and utilization of the waters from swamp and overflow lands; and that the work shall be carried on by existing agencies in the federal departments under an administrative commission or board to be appointed by the President, 051 48acting in cooperation with States, municipalities, communities, corporations, and individuals.” a

The improvements should conform to the plan already outline.” b In the Atlantic-interior system there should be a deep waterway from Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and a deep ad continuous Atlantic inner passage from New England to Florida, the present plan for improving the Ohio should be carried out promptly and should be perfected by any forestation and reservoirs required to control the headwaters, the upper Mississippi and the Missouri should be improved and canalized the lower Mississippi should be connected with the Rio Grande and with the waters of Florida by inner passages, the navigable rivers flowing into Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean should be improved, and all appropriate links in the system should be adapted to vessels of standard depth and should be connected with one another and with the Great Lakes by canals of standard dimensions. In the Columbia-Puget system the rivers should be improved and requisite connecting canals should be constructed; and in the California system Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Feather rivers should be so improved as to open the country to interstate and foreign commerce.

To promote and perfect the plan, scientific investigations, surveys, and measurements should be continued and extended, especially the more accurate determination of rainfall and evaporation, the investigation and measurement of ground water, the gauging of streams and determination of sediment, and topographic surveys of catchment areas and sites available for control of the waters for navigation and related purposes.

It has been roughly estimated that the inland waterways of the country could be improved in ten years at a cost of $50,000,000 annually in such manner as to promote interstate commerce, and at the same time greatly reduce the waste and extend the use of the waters. If done at the cost of the people, the burden would be 62½ cents per capita per year, or $6.25 in all, for a population of 80,000,000. This burden should be assumed without delay either by appropriations or by the issue of bonds in small denominations bearing low interest, adapted to distributing both the burden and benefits among the people.

It is roughly estimated that the direct benefits would comprise an annual saving in transportation of $250,000,000; an annual saving in flood damage of $150,000,000; an average annual saving in forest fires of at least $25,000,000; an annual benefit through cheapened power of fully $75,000,000; and an annual saving in soil erosion (or corresponding benefit through increased farm production) of $500,000,000—a total of $1,000,000,000, or $12.50 per capita annually, i.e., twenty times the cost. In addition, large benefits would result from extended irrigation, from the drainage and settlement of swamp and overflow lands, and from purified and cheapened water supply with consequent diminution of disease and saving of human life.

Various indirect benefits would arise through the interrelations among the natural resources. For example,the development of water traffic in lieu of rail carriage would reduce the constantly 052 49increasing consumption of ties and mine timbers, now a heavy drain on our forest; it would reduce the consumption of iron, since water vehicles require but a quarter to a third of the metal required by rail vehicles of like capacity; and it would correspondingly reduce the consumption of coal for both propulsion and smelting. At the same time the reduced used of ties and mine timbers would save the forests and so aid in protecting the headwaters on which the navigable streams depend for both supply and regimen.

With a view to promoting interstate commerce, the Federal Government has aided railways by subsidies and grants to the extent of many hundred million dollars, thereby contributing materially to the 228,000 miles of railways and collateral property aggregating about one-seventh of our national wealth and earning nearly $2,500,000,000 annually; yet although our railway freightage runs only about three-quarters of a cent per ton-mile (or half that of Europe), our distances are so great that many commodities can not be moved with profit to and from our ports, and our export of foodstuffs have declined to the disturbance of our foreign commerce. Our farm and forest products exceed $8,000,000,000, our mineral products are $2,000,000,000, and our products of manufacture are fully $15,000,000,000 annually, or a gross nominal output (with considerable duplication) of $25,000,000,000. Of this aggregate, much is not moved by rail, and much more is moved short distances only; yet we paid for railway freightage alone in 1906 no less than $1,659,925,643. Reckoning the total cost of domestic traffic by rail and water and wagon, together with freightage on imports, it is probable that an average American family pays for transportation of food and clothing nearly or quite one-third of their actual cost, i.e., our consumers pay too much and our producers get too little for the necessaries of life. This condition would be relieved, while the railway business would be promoted rather than injured, by the development of water transportation on an adequate scale. The promotion of interstate commerce by the railway aid was wise and beneficent in its time; but it is now time to supplement this agency of commerce by others better adapted to our multiplied population and enormously increased production.

It is estimated that the income derived from power developed by works for the improvement of navigation, if utilized at current market rates in cooperation with States and citizens, would alone compensate the entire cost of maintenance and continued development after the initial expenditure of $500,000,000 as a working capital. In any event the first cost should be deemed an investment in the interest of the people, certain to yield large returns in public welfare and national growth.

Whether or not the initial investment be so made as to yield pecuniary returns, the just and reasonable demand of a majority of the people for the improvement of their waterways should be met, and that the more promptly by reason of seventy years of repression.

W J McGee, Secretary, Section of Waters.

Our industries which subsist wholly or mainly upon wood pay the wages of more than 1,500,000 men and women.

Forests not only grow timber, but they hold the soil and they conserve the streams. They abate the wind and give protection from excessive heat or cold. Woodlands make for the fiber, health, and happiness of each citizen and of the nation.

The fish which live in forest waters furnish each year $21,000,000 worth of food, and not less than half as much is furnished by the game which could not exist without the forest.

The industries which use wood wholly or mainly in manufacture represent an investment of over $2,250,000,000 and yield each year a product worth nearly $3,000,000,000.

Forests conserve streams by regulating their flow. Our knowledge of the effect of forests upon the quantity of water carried by streams is not yet complete. Our knowledge of the effect of forests upon the regularity of stream flow has an adequate basis of observation and record.

We do not possess complete scientific proof that forests increase rain, but know laws governing rainfall and the known physical effects of forests lead straight to that conclusion. A part of the falling rain or snow is checked by the tree tops and returned to the air by evaporation. But this evaporation is wholly or nearly compensated for by the smaller evaporation from the soil under forest cover than from the soil in the open. The forest soil gives up water to the air more slowly than either brush land, meadow land, or cultivated fields.

Both observation and record show fully that forests powerfully affect the manner in which water reaches streams and passes down them. The forest floor is a blanket, and like a blanket it will hold more water than will the harder and relatively less porous soil of the open. A saturated forest soil will hold more than half its dry weight in water, or over 6 inches of water for every foot of soil. This, as well as the breaking up of forest of soil by the roots of trees and undergrowth, makes it more effective than any other cover for the intake of water into the vast underground reservoir from which all streams and springs are fed.

When the forest is cleared from a mountain watershed the blanket formed by the decaying leaves, branches, and fallen trees is burned up, dried by the sun, or carried off by wind and water. This is inevitably followed by increase in the frequency and duration of 054 52floods. This fact is known to every man who has had an opportunity to observe it. To those who have not had this opportunity the story is told by actual record of stream flow upon the following rivers for a period during which the mountain forests on their watersheds were rapidly denuded. There are such as the Ohio, Monongahela, Allegheny, Cumberland, Alabama, Savannah, Wateree, Congaree, and Muskingum.

That surface conditions affect stream flow is shown by the record of streams whose naturally treeless watersheds by cultivation have been made more retentive of water. The principal watershed of the Red River lies in the prairie country of western Texas and Oklahoma. With slightly decrease rainfall this stream shows during the last sixteen years a marked decrease in the frequency and duration of floods and of low water. During this period much of its watershed has been cultivated, groves have been planted, and fires checked, resulting in a larger capacity for the absorption and storage of water.

That forests hold soil and that hillsides denuded of forest do not hold their soil is to be seen in any mountain region in the United States. One small stream has been found by actual measurement to deposit silt in one year equal to 1½ tons per acre of its watershed. For the whole United States the loss of soil each year is from one to two thousand million tons. At the lowest estimate the total quantity of silt carried by our streams would cover 1 foot deep a surface of more than 900 square miles. The larger part of it is deposited in the lower courses of our streams and in our harbors, a menace to navigation and to present developed water powers, and a handicap to their development.

The National Forests in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific coast States afford summer ranges to over 12 per cent of the cattle and 21 per cent of the sheep in the States in which they lie. If this live stock were not fed in the forests during the summer months it would be without natural forage during the winter. For the East, the number of forest-fed live stock can not be given. But notably in the southern pine belt and in the southern mountains, live-stock owners, especially small holders, turn out their sheep, cattle, and hogs in the forests for the larger part of each year.

That the existence of nearly all kinds of wild game depends directly upon the conservation of the forest is well known. The deer killed in six States alone in the northeast represents each year a food value of over $1,000,000. The raw furs exported yearly from the United States are worth $7,000,000 to $8,000,000, and raw furs worth in the aggregate still more are kept for manufacture here. Most of these furs are taken from forest animals. Relatively few kinds of fresh-water fish, and mainly those of inferior food value, will endure in streams fed from denuded watersheds.

Our forests now cover 550,000,000 acres, or about one-fourth of the United States. The original forests covered not less than 850,000,00 acres.

Forest publicly owned contain one-fifth of all timber standing. Forest privately owned contain at least four-fifths of the standing timber.

The timber privately owned is not four times that publicly owned, but it is generally more valuable.

Forestry is now practiced on 70 per cent of the forests publicly owned and on less than 1 per cent of the forests privately owned, or on only 18 per cent of the total area of forests.

The original forests of the United States contained timber in quantity and variety far beyond that upon any other area of similar size in the world. They covered 850,000,000 acres, with a stand of not less than 5,200,000,000,000 board feet of merchantable timber, according to present standards of use. There we five great forest regions—the northern, the southern, the central, the Rocky Mountain, and the Pacific. (See fig. 1.)

The northern forest was the home of the white pine. With it grew red pine, spruce, hemlock, cedar, balsam fir, and several hardwoods. Before clearing and logging began, the northern forest probably covered 150,000,000 acres, and contained not less than 1,000,000,000,000 board feet. In the southern forest the yellow pines were the most common trees, with hard woods on the better soils and cypress in the swamps. The southern forest probably covered 220,000,000 acres and contained at least 1,000,000,000,000 board feet. The central forest was nearly all hardwoods, among which the more important were oak, yellow poplar, elm, hickory, chestnut, red gum, ash, and walnut. Its area was about 280,000,000 acres and its stand 1,400,000,000,000 board feet. The Rocky Mountain forest was coniferous and grew mainly upon the mountains. Western yellow pine was the most common tree, with lodgepole pine, larch, spruce, western red cedar, western white pine, and Douglas and other firs abounding locally. The Rocky Mountain forest covered about 110,000,000 acres with a stand of 400,000,000,000 board feet. The Pacific forest was nearly all evergreen, chiefly Douglas fir, western yellow pine, redwood, western red cedar, sugar pine, and several other firs, cedars, and spruces. Its trees were the largest and its stands the heaviest recorded by history or by geology. The Pacific forest probably contained 90,000,000 acres, with a stand of 1,400,000,000,000 feet.

As well as these great forest regions, the United States probably contained 100,000,000 acres, chiefly in the West, of scrubby forests and brush land, of great value in conserving stream flow and for fuel, posts, and other small material.

Our present forests, except upon the pacific coast and in the Rocky Mountains, are mere remnants of those which once covered 45 per cent of the country. Clearing for agriculture, logging, and fire have reduced this to 29 per cent, or 550,000,000 acres, with a probable stand of 2,500,000,000,000 board feet. The northern forest now contains 90,000,000 acres, or 60 per cent of its former area; the southern forest 150,000,000 acres, or 68 per cent; the central forest 130,000,000 acres, or 46 per cent; the Rocky Mountain forest 100,000,000 acres, or 91 per cent; and the Pacific forest 80,000,000 acres, or 89 per cent of its original acreage.

Fire, careless cutting, and excessive grazing have greatly injured the composition and quality of existing forests. No native tree has yet become entirely extinct, but the commercial supply of every kind, except those of the Pacific forest, is seriously reduced. The following estimates of the quantity of timber publicly and privately owned have been compiled by the National Conservation Commission.

Forests publicly owned are nearly all in the West. (See Fig. 2.) They consist of National Forest, national parks, Indian reservations, military reservations, the forests of the unreserved public domain, and state forests. They contain over 100,000,000 acres of merchantable timber, with a stand of 484,200,000,000 board feet, distributed as follows:

Forestry is practiced on 70 per cent of these public forests.

Forests privately owned fall into two classes—farmers’ woodlots and larger private holdings. Woodlots contain 300,000,000,000 board feet of saw timber and 1,500,000,000 cords of wood. They cover 200,000,000 acres, 95 per cent of which is in the region east of the plains, where woodlots form about one-half the forest. Woodlots consist in the main of scattered patches of original forest, from which the best timber has been cut. They are made to yield little saw timber, but furnish the chief supply of fuel, posts, and rails, and of wood for other domestic and some local uses. Particularly in the East woodlots furnish a considerable number of hewn ties. Through their location among farm lands and their small individual area, woodlots suffer less damage from fire than do large timber tracts. But they are seldom conserved by the regulation of either cutting or grazing.

Corporate holdings with the larger individual holdings contain about 1,700,000,000,000 feet of timber. This is, on the average, the most valuable timber in the United States. Forestry is practiced on much less than 1 per cent of the timber tracts privately owned.

The yearly growth of wood in our forests does not average more than 12 cubic feet per acre. This gives a total yearly growth of less than 7,000,000,000 cubic feet.

Nearly all our native commercial trees grow much faster than those of Europe. We already grow post timber in twenty to thirty years, mine timber in twenty-five to thirty-five years, tie timber in thirty-five to forty years, and saw timber in thirty to seventy-five years.

We have 200,000,000 acres of mature forests, in which yearly growth is balanced by decay; 250,000,000 acres partly out over or burned over, but restocking naturally with enough young growth to produce a merchantable crop; and 100,000,000 acres cut over and burned over, upon which young growth is either wholly lacking or too scanty to make merchantable timber.

That our forests grow very slowly, although the individual trees of many kinds grow fast is our fault. In Europe, forests composed of trees growing much slower than most of ours produce over four times as much because the forests are cared for.

FIG. 3

FIG. 4

We have twenty important kinds of trees which produce in one hundred years or less, timber fit for the saw. In favorable localities, cottonwood, red gum, white ash, and loblolly pine in the South, and redwood, Douglas and other firs, Sitka spruce, and western yellow pine on the Pacific coast, will grow saw timber in thirty to seventy-five years.

Under present conditions, chestnut, cypress, redwood, yellow poplar, red and black oak, loblolly, jack, red and white pine, and western yellow pine will grow post timber, four to eight inches in diameter, in fifteen to thirty years. We are already getting mine props in twenty-five to thirty-five years from red or black oak and loblolly pine, from white oak in forty-five years, from red pine in forty years, from lodgepole pine in sixty years, from western yellow pine and Douglas fir in the Rocky Mountains in fifty years and on the Pacific coast in thirty-five years.

This time now needed to grow a tie in our forests runs from thirty-five years for red gum to one hundred and fifty years for white cedar and tamarack in the northern swamps. Douglas fir and western yellow pine on the Pacific coast, and chestnut, red oak, and loblolly pine are, on the average, making tie timber in forty to forty-five years, cypress in sixty-five years, longleaf pine in seventy-five years, white oak in eighty years, lodgepole pine in the Rockies, and beech, in 100 years, and western hemlock in one hundred and thirty years.

These figures are taken from measurements of trees grown in forests not conservatively managed. In the same forests, conservative management would, as the result of greater density, less unsoundness, and the growing of desirable kinds, not only yield several times as much timber in the same period, but would increase the growth of individual trees.

The 200,000,000 acres of mature forest in the United States is mainly in the northern Rockies and on the Pacific coast, the very regions in which the immature forests grow most rapidly. The 250,000,000 acres partly cut or burned over but restocking naturally with young growth are mostly in the southern mountains and in the southern pine belt. The 100,000,000 acres cut over and burned over, upon which young growth is wholly lacking or too scanty to make merchantable timber, are chiefly in the Lake States and in the southern pine belt.

We take from our forests yearly, including waste in logging and in manufacture, 23,000,000,000 cubic feet of wood.

We use each year 100,000,000 cords of firewood, 40,000,000,000 board feet of lumber, more than 1,000,000,000 posts, poles, and fence rails, 118,000,000 hewn ties, 1,500,000,000 staves, over 133,000,000 sets of heading, nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops, 3,000,000 cords of native pulp wood, 165,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, and 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation.

The volume of wood needed in 1907 to produce each of these great products is shown graphically in figure 3. The kind and quality of timber used for these products vary enormously. The great bulk of firewood comes from farmers’ woodlots or from forests already 061 56logged. Some of its made from wood unfit for any other use. But a large part is taken from immature trees, especially hardwoods of kinds valuable for lumber.

Lumber and shingles are usually made from large timber of high quality. Lumber is being made in commercial quantities from thirty kinds of trees. The amount cut from each of them is shown in figure 4. Softwoods furnish 77 per cent of our total yearly lumber supply, and hardwoods 23 per cent.

The southern pines furnish over 30 per cent of our lumber; Douglas fir about 12 per cent; white pine, 10 per cent; oak, 9 per cent; and hemlock over 8 per cent.

The lumber cut in 1907, by States, is shown in Figure 5. Washington was first, with 9.4 per cent; Louisiana second, with 7.4 per cent; Texas came next, with 5.5 per cent; and Mississippi, Wisconsin, and Arkansas followed closely, with about 5 per cent each.

The center of lumber supply in the United States shifts constantly, as one region is cut over and another is attacked. The relative production of ten States in 1880 and 1097 is shown in figure 6.

In 1880 these ten States produced 53.8 per cent of the total cut of 18,125,432,000 board feet, and in 1907 they produced 52.4 per cent of the total cut of 40,256,154,000 board feet. The changes in the output by States are striking. Michigan supplied 23 per cent of the total lumber output in 1880 and 4.5 per cent in 1907. Washington yielded less than 1 per cent in 1880 and over 9 per cent in 1907.

Over three-fifths of our shingles are made from western red cedar, chiefly in Washington, and the remainder mainly from eastern white cedar, cypress, and redwood. Telephone, telegraph, and electric light and traction companies use each year between three and four million poles in various lengths above 20 feet. Three-fifths of these are white cedar, cut chiefly in the Lake States, and over one-fourth is chestnut. Much cedar and chestnut, as well as many woods common to other regions are used for smaller-sized poles and for posts and fence rails. The oaks, chiefly white oak, furnish over 45 per cent of the hewn railroad ties. The cutting of young oak for ties, next to the cutting of oak logs for lumber, is the most serious drain upon our oak forests. Other kinds much used for ties are the southern and western pines, cedar, chestnuts, cypress, and hemlock. Many woods are used for slack cooperage stock, of which the chief are red gum, pine, elm, beech, and maple. A large part of the tight cooperage stock is high-grade white oak, which results in another heavy drain upon the oak forests.

Our paper and pulp mills use over 3,000,000 cords of native wood each year and import more than 900,000 cords from Canada. Nearly three-fifths of the native pulp wood is spruce, cut mostly in the Northeastern States, and one-fifth is hemlock, which comes chiefly from Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The cutting of mine timbers takes each year great quantities of immature timber from forests in the mining regions, the kinds used varying with the locality.

Nearly all wood used for distillation is beech, birch, and maple. In relatively few cases this wood is saved from the waste in logging.

FIG. 5.

FIG. 6.

Since 1870 forest fires have each year destroyed an average of fifty lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. Not less than 50,000,000 acres of forest are burned over yearly. The young growth destroyed by fire is worth far more than the merchantable timber burned.

One-fourth of the standing timber is left or otherwise lost in logging. The boxing of longleaf pine for turpentine has destroyed one-fifth of the forests worked. The loss in the mill is from one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed. The loss in the mill product through seasoning and fitting for use is from one-seventh to one-fourth. Great damage is done by insects to forests and forest products. An average of only 320 feet of lumber is used for each 1,000 feet which stood in the forest.

Prodigious waste has accompanied our use of the forest. The chief causes are fire, wasteful methods of logging and turpentining, waste in the mill, and waste in the use of wood.

Forest fires have destroyed many billion feet of commercial timber. They have driven the forest from vast areas, upon which the actual planting of trees will be needed before the forest will return to them. They have destroyed or injured young growth whose value is much more than that of the timber burned. They have changed greatly for the worse the quality and composition of existing forests. To them is due, far more than to the wasteful logging which they have usually followed, the decline in the utility of our streams for all useful purposes; and, through erosion, forest fires are working destructive change in the configuration of the land itself.

The average waste in the woods in 1,000 board feet to every 4,000 board feet logged. This is due to a variety of causes, many of which could be wholly removed with both present and permanent profits, and all of which could be greatly reduced with the same result. Chief among them are plans for logging poorly made or poorly carried out; the leaving of merchantable timber in the woods either actually cut or in dead trees, trees partly unsound, or trees of the less valuable kinds; the waste of timber in high stumps and long tops, and in the failure to cut logs to such length that the tree is most profitably used; breakage in felling, loss in lodged trees, and in driving; and the use of good timber for temporarily construction in logging, for which inferior timber would serve equally well. But still more serious than all these forms of waste combined, in its effect upon the future timber supply, is the well-nigh universal damage in logging, for the most part wholly unnecessary, to the young growth.

The experience of half a century has clearly shown in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia that turpentining under present methods renders a permanent naval-stores industry in the South utterly impossible. These methods usually render the forest unproductive in four or five years. They have so greatly reduced the long-leaf pine forests available for turpentining that in some localities trees 4 or 5 inches in diameter are now being boxed. This generally means an exceedingly, low return in turpentine and the death in a year or two of trees, which would otherwise have grown to make lumber.

In the mill logs lose from 30 to in some cases as much as 70 per cent of the volume of timer they contain. Two-thirds of this, under present conditions, is an unavoidable waste. One-third can practically and profitably be avoided. In the manufacture of lumber, 064 58which forms over nine-tenths of the total mill product, the merchantable output is about two-thirds the contents of the log, not including the bark. For the entire lumber cut of the United States under present practice the saw kerf forms on the average 13 per cent of the total volume of the log, edgings and trimmings 9 per cent, and slabs 9 per cent. Cutting to standard lengths and widths, carelessness in manufacture, and accidents cause a loss of 5 per cent.

The waste in seasoning, in the factory, and in the use of the final product is far more difficult to estimate closely. In the building trades the waste in seasoning from staining, warping, and checking, and the loss in fitting material to final forms are not less than 15 per cent. The waste in cutting stock to required sizes and in eliminating defects is 20 per cent in box factories and 25 per cent in furniture factories.

In the aggregate great damage is done each year to standing and cut timber by injurious forests. Much of this damage can be prevented at small expense. The application, practically without cost, of simple preventive measures against injurious forest insects and insects which attack forest products would greatly reduce the unnecessary losses which they occasion. The protection of the forest from insect depredations, both by preventive measures such as conservative logging and by remedial measures when necessary, is no less a part of practical forestry than is the production of the forest from fire. The damage to timber standing and cut by insect attack is not so generally apparent nor so generally understood as the damage to the forest by fire. But the injury done is both great and constant. Unless forest owners take vigorous steps against it whenever it threatens still larger losses will inevitably ensue.

Great causes of waste, vast in their effect upon our forests, are the general failure to realize that the cost of growing timber as well as logging and manufacture must be reckoned in its value; and tax laws which force men to realize immediately on their holdings and so lead to unprofitable and wasteful logging, and which compel the abandonment of cut-over lands for taxes.

We take from our forests each year, not counting the loss by fire, three and one-half times their yearly growth. We take 40 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown; we take 260 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 cubic feet and France 25 cubic feet.

We invite by overtaxation the misuse of our forests. We should plant, to protect farms from wind and to make stripped or treeless lands productive, an area larger than that of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia combined. But so far, lands successfully planted to trees make a total area smaller than Rhode Island. And year by year, through careless cutting and fires, we lover the capacity of existing forests to produce their like again, or totally destroy them.

The condition of the world supply of timber makes up already dependent upon what we produce. We send out of our country one and one-half times as much timber as we bring in. Except for finishing woods, relatively insignificant in quantity, we must grow out own supply or go without.

By wasteful logging, and general failure to provide for a second crop we have made our forests less productive than any others of similar area in the world, in spite of the remarkably quick growth of most of our timber tress. We have taken our dividends out of our forest capital until we have greatly reduced the capital itself. Our use of wood per capita is larger than that of any other nation. Canada, which has 60 acres of forest per capita to our 6, uses less than 200 cubic feet per capita; Germany uses 37 feet, France 25 feet, and Great Britain 14 feet. We use 260 cubic feet.

We have 65,000,000 acres of cut-over and burned -over forest land, upon which actual planting will be necessary to produce a merchantable crop of timber. Of the 9,500,000 acres of forest cut over each year, 1,000,000 acres is cleared for farms; 5,750,000 acres is restocking naturally with enough young growth to produce a merchantable crop; and 2,750,000 acres go to increase our national task in forest planting. But the entire area already planted successfully in our whole history is less than one-fifth of that upon which we destroy the forest every year.

White pine is so nearly used up that the lumber sawed from it in the Lake States has fallen off 70 per cent since 1890, and since 1900 over 45 per cent in the whole country. We make 16 per cent less oak lumber and 22 per cent less yellow poplar lumber than we did seven years ago. Douglas fir and yellow pine, now our chief source of supply, are going far quicker than they grow, and the yellow pine is going very rapidly. Yellow pine lumber costs 65 per cent more at mil than it did in 1990; Douglas fir costs 63 per cent more; white pine 53 per cent more; oak 54 per cent, yellow poplar 78 per cent, and hemlock 55 per cent more.

We tax our forests under the general property tax, a method of taxation abandoned long ago by every other great nation. In some regions of great importance for timber supply, and in individual cases in all regions, the taxation of forest lands has been excessive and has let to waste by forcing the destructive logging of mature forests, as well as through the abandonment of cut-over lands for taxes. That this has not been even more general is due to under-assessment, to lax administrative of the law, but to no virtue in the law itself. Already taxes upon forest lands are being increased by the strict enforcement of the tax laws. Even where this has not yet been done, the fear that it will be done is a bar to the practice of forestry.

The protection of all public forests from fire is not yet achieved, and an average of 1 acre in every 10 of forest privately owned is burned over yearly. Many of these fires destroy little or no old growth, but wherever fire runs in our forests it either reduces or destroys their capacity to produce again.

We send wood out of the country, and we bring it in. But for each billion feet brought in we send out 1,500,000,000 feet, and the total difference goes to increase by nearly 1 per cent the yearly drain upon our forests. No other country is or will be in a position to meet our needs. Europe imports more wood than she exports. Africa imports structural timber, and can export only expensive hardwoods. The same is true of India, the chief forest country of Asia. China imports wood, and will require any surplus furnished by Siberia and Manchuria. Japan should finally supply her own needs. The Philippines 066 60now import much timber, but should eventually grow it, with some surplus for export to China. The total stand of merchantable timber in the Philippines is about equal to the lumber cut in the United States for two years. Alaska has probably as much as the Philippines. Hawaii can export only hardwoods in small quantities. Mexico and Central and South America import structural timber and export mahogany and cedar. South America has great forests which when utilized and cared for should supply the home market. We get about 900,000,000 feet of lumber and 900,000 cords of pulp wood from Canada each year, or 2 per cent of the lumber and 23 per cent of the pulp wood which we use. Canada has more spruce pulp wood than we have, but her standing saw timber is only about one-third of ours. Canada will eventually require all the lumber which her forests can grow.

Whether we take care of our forests, or whether we do not, we can expect (save for a trifling quantity of finishing woods) to use what timber they grow, and no more.

The records prove that, other factors remaining constant, industrial progress is accompanied by increased consumption of wood. This fact is so universally manifest that it can not be thought an accident. It may be regarded as a law of industrial life.

It might be supposed that the substitution of other materials for wood which takes place with industrial progress would decrease the per capita need of wood, but such is not the fact. Substitutions may diminish consumption for specific purposes, but this is more than made up for by the development of needs for wood along new lines or of greater needs along old lines. Only rising prices can serve to lessen the consumption of wood by an advancing nation, and after wasteful use has been cut off, any further reduction means an economic disadvantage. It means harder conditions of life, a handicap on industry.

In the United States our use of wood is lavish. By better methods in the woods, at the mill, and in ways of use we can make what we have go further than we are now making it go, without industrial hardship. On the other hand, our legitimate need will certainly not decline but advance as we go on to greater industrial strength. We can without hardship reduce our per capita consumption through economies; but after we have reached a reasonable basis we must expect to see our needs advancing again. We are like a growing family which is extravagantly living beyond its income, but which is sure to need, when it has cut off extravagant use, an advancing income through future years.

We should stop forest fires. By careful logging we should both reduce waste and leave cut-over lands productive. We should make the timber logged go further by preservative treatment and by avoiding needless loss in the woods, the mill, the factory, and in use. We should plant up those lands now treeless which will be most useful under forest. We should so adjust taxation that cut-over lands can be held for a second crop. We should recognize that it costs to grow timber as well as to log and saw it.

We should continue and perfect, by State and nation, the preservàtion by use of forests already publicly owned; and we should extend it to other mountain forests more valuable for the permanent benefit of the many than for the temporary profit of a few.

For each million acres of forest in public ownership over 4,000,000 are privately owned. The conservation of public forests is the smaller task before the nation and the States. The larger task is to induce private forest owners, which means 3,000,000 men, to take care of what they have, and to teach wood users, which means every one, how not to waste.

If these things are done, they will conserve our streams as well as our forests. If they are not done, the usefulness of our streams will decrease no less than the usefulness of our forests.

By reasonable thrift we can produce a constant timber supply beyond our present need, and with it conserve the usefulness of our streams for irrigation, water supply, navigation, and power.

Under the right management our forests will yield over four times as much as now. We can reduce waste in the woods and in the mill at least one-third, with present as well as future profit. We can perpetuate the naval-stores industry. Preservative treatment will reduce by one-fifth the quantity of timber used in the water or in the ground. We can practically stop forest fires at a total yearly cost of one-fifth the value of the standing timber burned each year.

We shall suffer for timber to meet our needs until our forests have had time to grow again. But if we act vigorously and at once we shall escape permanent timber scarcity.

We take out of our forests each year three and a half times as much wood as they grow, partly because we waste more wood than any other nation. The saving of wood practicable in logging, in the mill, and in use has already been pointed out, but we fail to produce each year much more than the wood we need because we misuse the forest.

Against an average yearly growth of 12 cubic feet per acre in the United States, the forests in Germany, all of which are rightly handled, yield each year 48 cubic feet per acre, and their most common trees do not grow naturally as fast as ours. It is certain that the average annual yield of forests in this country can be made, through protection from fire and through conservative logging, much larger than that of forests in Germany.

Every owner of forest lands can stop fires and log conservatively, with immediate profit, as well as with permanent profit.

Most other countries have already learned that the forests which are not conserved will be used up, and they are taking care of what they have. We are among the last to learn it. We can profit by that knowledge if we will. But if we will it means action united, vigorous and prompt, State and nation.

The estimates which this summary contains are based on all information about our forests possessed by the Federal Government and upon vigorous work for about six months in the special field of inquiry before the section of forests of the National Conservation Commission. One feature of the latter has been the sending out of more than 100,000 requests for information to forest owners and forest users throughout the United States.

The inventory made by the section of forests, simply because its scope has been wider than that of any other inventory of our forests, has shown still more clearly the urgent need for exact knowledge of just where we stand. We must have as a working basis a careful census of the kind, quality, and quantity of standing timber in the United States, of the condition of our forests, and of the wood we use for all important purposes. The nation can no more invite the best use of a national resource unless it knows essentially what the resource is than can the individual direct his own business successfully without taking careful stock of what he has.

The compilation of the data upon which this summary is based would have been impossible had it not been for the vigorous cooperation of state and federal agencies concerned, as well as of organizations representing national industries dependent wholly or mainly upon the forest. Had it not been for the cooperation of the Bureau of the Census, the voluminous and detained computation necessary to the statement of the final results could not have been made in time; had it not been for the cooperation of the Bureau of Corporations we should not possess a trustworthy estimate of the aggregate amount of standing timber in the United States; and to the United States Geological Survey and to Mr. Bailey Willis, geologist and engineer, is due 080 74the scientific and comprehensive statement of fact as to the relation of the forests to the stream. These and many other agencies, federal, state, and private, have provided the material upon which this summary is based.

Both in the preparation of this summary and throughout the work preliminary to it I have been associated with Mr. R. S. Kellogg and Mr. W. T. Cox, of the Forest Service, who were designated for this task by the Forester. Their individual share in several important phases of the work greatly exceeds my own.

Through the compilation of material relating to forests and forestry, the following members of the Forest Service have aided greatly in the work: Messrs. W. Bradfield, H. S. Bristol, E. E. Carter, E. H. Clapp, T. C. Cleveland, jr., M. Cline, C. S. Chapman, S. T. Dana, E. H. Frothingham, W. B. Greeley, W. L. Hall, L. F. Hawley, G. M. Homans, C. Leavitt, L. Margolin, A. B. Patterson, A. S. Peck, J. G. Peters, A. C. Ringland, H. S. Sackett, W. F. Sherfesee, H. A. Smith, G. B. Sudworth, H. F. Weiss, P. P. Wells, E. A. Zeigler, and R. Zon.

Valuable assistance in the compilation of data has also been rendered by Prof. Henry S. Graves, director of the Yale Forest School, and a member of the National Conservation Commission; by Prof. Filibert Roth, in charge of instruction in forestry at the University of Michigan, and by Prof. F. R. Fairchild, assistant professor of economics in Yale University. Through general supervision of the methods for securing statistical data relating to forests and of the form of its final presentation, as well as in the aid throughout the work of his wide knowledge and experience. Mr. Henry Gannett has helped greatly to make the compilation what it is.

Overton W. Price, Secretary, Section of Forests.

The land area of the United States, excluding Alaska and the insular possessions, is about 3,000,000 square miles, or 1,920,000,000 acres. Of this area over half is arable, and a little less than half is occupied as farm land. About one-fourth is forest and one-eighth sparse wood land and cut-over land. Two-fifths is arid or semiarid, generally requiring irrigation; one twenty-fifth is swamp and over-flow lan requiring drainage. Most of the dry, wet, and sparsely wooded lands, with part of the forest area, is adapted to grazing.

About tow-thirds of the land has passed into private holdings. Of the original 1,920,000,000 acres there remained July 1, 1908, 387,000,000 acre open to entry; nearly all of this is arid or otherwise unsuitable for settlement by families. There are also about 235,000,000 acres in national forests, national parks, and other lands reserved for public use.

Aside from careless or ignorant farming and such hostile climatic conditions as storms and droughts, the most serious enemies to crops are noxious insects and mammals.

The chief insect enemies of the grains are the corn-root worm, the bollworm, the chinch bug, the Hessian fly, plant lice, grasshoppers, cutworms, and army worms. The worst enemy of cotton is the boll weevil. Fruits are injured chiefly by the codling moth and the San Jose scale. The Bureau of Entomology estimates that the annual damage by noxious insects to growing crops, fruit trees, and grain in storage is no less than $659,000,000. This total includes the cost of preventive measures which greatly reduce the aggregate loss.

The average yearly loss to animal products from files, ticks, and other insects is estimated at $267,000,000. This does not include the enormous loss of human life and the cost of disease due to house flies, mosquitoes, fleas, and other germ-carrying insects-a loss much greater than that suffered by the live stock and their products.

The Biological Survey estimates that the damage to live stock and crops by wolves, rats, mice, and other mammals averages over $100,000,000 yearly. This figure also includes the cost of preventive measures; without them the losses would be much greater. Birds generally are beneficial as destroyers of noxious insects and mammals.

While the figures are staggering in the aggregate, they represent careful and frequently repeated estimates by conservative specialists, and in each case they are in accord with the common observation of intelligent farmers and other citizens. They must be regarded as trustworthy and as representing an enormous preventable waste.

The appended statement by the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture shows that the average loss by disease during the past five years was: Among horses, 1.8 per cent; among cattle, 2 per cent; among sheep, 2.2 per cent, and among swine, 5.1 per cent. The aggregate annual loss averaged $93,000,000.

The most prevalent disease among cattle and swine is tuberculosis; it is estimated that at least 1 per cent of beef cattle, 10 per cent of dairy kine, and 2 per cent of swine are affected. Sheep and cattle suffer seriously from scabies, while hog cholera is prevalent among swine. Texas fever among cattle (transmitted by a tick) is a destructive disease, causing a direct annual loss estimated at $40,000,000. All these diseases are remediable, and some or all may be eradicable.

The total annual losses to the agriculture of the country, including live stock, animal products, and grain in storage, from insects, mammals, and disease is estimated at $1,142,000,000, or one-sixth of the total production.

Our wild game and fur-bearing animals have been largely exterminated. One of the most painful chapters in the period of our wanton waste is the destruction of wild game. Everyone knows the story of the passing of the buffalo and of the fur seal; not so well known is the recent history of the moose, caribou, deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, and mountain goat. A generation ago most of these abounded on the western plains and mountains; now they are rarely seen. Fortunately, before their complete extermination, most of the States and the United States began their protection, and under wise laws, generally well enforced, many of the game animals are now increasing.

With protection the game animals, like many fish and game birds, are becoming a source of large benefit to the country, as is well shown in the appended statement by Dr. C. Hart Merriam, Chief of the Biological Survey.

With game birds the story is much the same—wanton destruction until the number was greatly reduced, followed in recent years by wise protection, allowing the remnant to survive and even to increase.

Our game animals and birds supply food, skins, furs, and feathers to the annual value of several million dollars, and the amount is increasing.

Our fish supply is now largely dependent on artificial propagation. The annual value of the fisheries of the United States is $57,000,000; the products form an important element of our food supply. Salmon, trout, shad, lobsters, and other important varieties are maintained almost exclusively by propagation and restocking.

The production and propagation of fish and the restocking of streams and lakes are seriously retarded by conflicting laws or absence of laws in the different States; in some cases, as in Columbia River, the diversity of state laws is seriously inimical to the maintenance of the fisheries. It is of the utmost importance that the States should cooperate among each other and with the Federal Government for the production and development of the fish and fisheries of interstate streams and lakes.

The area of open range on the Great Plains, in the Rocky Mountains and in the Great Basin exceeds 300,000,000 acres. The climate ranges from temperate to hot and from semiarid to desert. The pasturage was originally variable in quality, though generally sparse. The greater part was excessively overstocked soon after settlement began, and in some districts the pasturage was virtually destroyed. On the whole the range is in bad condition and of greatly reduced value; the portions occupied by sheep are especially poor, owing to overstocking and trampling.

It is clear that the public range is greatly deteriorated and that the deterioration is still in progress. It is equally clear that it might be restored by proper regulation of grazing, coupled in some cases with complete protection for terms of years, perhaps with some reseeding. The requisite control can be exercised only by the owner of the range, the Federal Government. Experts are of opinion that in most cases restoration can best be accomplished by leasing to stock owners for considerable periods, and allowing them to fence their holdings; for under such a system the stockmen would be interested in maintaining and improving the pasturage, while the governmental cooperation would afford protection from lawless invasion by competitors. The same system would alleviate the shocking cruelty of the range, under which stock have been starved and frozen and slaughtered by thousands through the shortsight and cupidity of stockmen having no interest in range or State beyond that of skinning it to the utmost for immediate profit.

The area of swamp and overflow lands is estimated at 75,000,000 or 80,000,000 acres, or about 4 per cent of our territory. The swamp-land area is capable of fairly exact delimitation and has been generally mapped, while the land subject to overflow can not be sharply defined, and the statements of area are merely approximate.

The swamp-land act of 1850 granted to the States then in existence all the lands within their limits classed by the surveyors of the General Land Office as swamp. Under this act 65,582,503 acres have been patented to the States; while 1,307,700 acres, nearly all in Minnesota, remain in public possession.

Of the swamp lands patented to the States, 60,142,003 acres have been conveyed to individuals or companies, leaving in possession of the States 5,440,500 acres.

In the States not affected by the swamp-land act the greater part of the wet lands have apparently passed into private ownership, except in those admitted since 1850, to which it has been judicially decided that the act does not apply and in which the swamps are inconsiderable, the United States still retains the greater share.

The cost of reclaiming swamp and overflow lands varies widely. Generally it is estimated that the value of the reclaimed lands is double or triple the original value plus the cost of reclamation. Practically all the wet lands of the country can be reclaimed at profit, and it is estimated that they would from homes for a population of 10,000,000. The chief obstacle is lack of coordination; generally the work can not be done by settlers or pioneer families, or even by communities, since reclamation projects are necessarily extensive and costly, and in many cases cross state boundaries. The plan of the Inland Waterways Commission contemplates reclamation of swamps and requisite protection of overflow lands as a part of a general system of improvement designed for the control and utilization of the waters. The plan is feasible, and when carried out will doubtless benefit the country greatly through increasing the capacity for population and production and converting the present wastes into sources of wealth.

The reclamation of swamp and overflow lands is in progress in several sections, usually under state appropriations, sometimes by 092 84country authorities or drainage districts. Details appear in appended papers prepared in the Geological Survey and in the Office of Experiment Stations.

A large incidental benefit arising from the drainage of swamp and overflow lands is the reduction of malarial and other disorders and the increase in viability and efficiency of our population. This aspect of the reclamation is discussed by Prof. Irving Fisher in the appended paper on “Conservation of life and health.”

About five-sixths of the land area of the United States has passed into private holdings. In the early history of the country there were extensive land grants, most of which were gradually subdivided with settlement.

The land laws of the United States were framed with a view to the settlement of the country and the making of homes, and during the greater part of our history this policy was pursued by both nation and settlers. During recent decades, especially since forests, minerals, waters and in some cases pasturage, came to be recognized as valuable in themselves apart from the land surface, individuals and corporation have frequently taken advantage of opportunities to acquire large holdings of land in order to gain control of the associated resources, and in many instances energetic farmers and other owners have acquired large tracts of land for agricultural purposes. The question of land holding is fundamental to the policy and practice of our Government, and it would seem of the greatest importance to ascertain whether the current tendency is toward large holdings with consequent landlordism, or toward smaller subdivisions and freehold homesteads. Naturally the tendency can be ascertained only through the facts of private ownership in the several sections of the country.

With a view to gaining the best information available, a schedule of inquiries was sent out in large numbers to selected farmers residing in every county of the United States; and, while the inquiries were designed to elicit information on other subjects, several were directed to the questions of increase or decrease in area of holdings. When the 30,000 useful replies, averaging about 10 form each county, were classified by counties, it was found to be the opinion of the correspondents that in 48 per cent of our area the size of farm holdings is increasing, and that in the remaining 52 per cent the size is either decreasing or there is no appreciable change.

The States in which the majority of the farm holdings were reported as increasing are mainly those west of the Mississippi, with a few farther eastward. Thus it appears that the tendency toward increase is greatest in newly settled regions, and that in the long-settled sections the average holdings either remain unchanged or tend to decrease.

In the holdings of mineral lands there is a marked tendency toward increase in area. This is decided in the case of iron lands, and is of course connected with the greater economy of large operations in mining, transporting, smelting, and manufacturing. In oil lands the tendency toward consolidation is apparently slight; in coal lands 093 85and those containing other minerals the tendency toward increase is intermediate.

In timber lands the tendency toward consolidation is strong, and has gone for toward placing control of such lands in a few hands. It appears that the monopolization is partly in the interest of economy in logging, milling, and manufacturing, but chiefly speculative.

On the whole there is a distinct tendency toward increase in size of holdings, chiefly in nonagricultural lands, but it is not so decided as to indicate that the homestead policy is unsatisfactory to the American people or out of accord with public welfare.

The annual products of the mines of the United States now exceed $2,000,000,000 in value. They contribute 65 per cent of the freight traffic of the country. The industry employs over a million men at the mines, and twice that number in handling, transporting, and manufacturing the products.

The waste or losses in the mining, preparation, and use of the mineral products is estimated to exceed $1,500,000 per day.

The available and accessible commercial coal in the United States aggregates approximately 1,400,000,000,000 tons. At the present increasing rate of production this will be depleted and will approach exhaustion before the middle of the next century; and the additional 1,600,000,000,000 tons of inferior coal and lignite not now available economically will approach exhaustion before the end of the next century.

The known supplies of high-grade iron ores in the United States approximate 4,788,150,000 tons, which at the present increasing rate of consumption can not be expected to last beyond the middle of the present century. These are also estimated to be 75,116,070,000 tons of low-grade iron ores which may hereafter be available.

The known supplies of petroleum, natural gas, and high-grade phosphate rock can not be expected to supply the nation's needs through the present century.

The losses from fire in the United States during 1907 were approximately $450,000,000, of which some $400,000,000 was preventable waste.

During 1907 we produced 480,000,000 tons of coal, and the annual production has increased at the average rate of more than 7 per cent. We also produced 52,000,000 tons of iron ore, and the production since 1880 has increased at the average rate of 110 per cent during each of the three decades. In 1907 we produced nearly 870,000,000 pounds of copper; more than 17,000,000 pounds of aluminum; 365,000 tons of lead; 223,000 tons of zinc; 166,000,000 barrels of petroleum; 52,000,000 barrels of cement; 30,000,000 barrels of salt; more than 2,265,000 tons of phosphate rock; and we also extracted clay products to the value of $159,000,000; natural gas, $53,000,000; stone, $71,000,000; gold, $90,400,000; and silver, $37,000,000.

The total value of our metallic products during 1907 was $900,000,000; of mineral fuels, $788,000,000; and of nonmetallic mineral products, other than fuels, more than $378,000,000.

During 1907 our production was 40 per cent of the world's production of coal; 45 per cent of the world's production of iron ore; 103 9622 per cent of its gold; 30 per cent of its silver; 33 per cent of its lead; 27.5 per cent of its zinc; 54.6 per cent of its copper; 52 per cent of its phosphate rock; and 63 per cent of its petroleum.

During the year we imported mineral products to the value of $255,000,000 and exported mineral products to the value of $340,000,000.

Our mineral wealth deserves special consideration and treatment, for the reason that it can not be increased or reproduced. The water for power and other purposes comes and goes continuously up to its limit; the grain crop of one year is succeeded by that of another; within a century one forest may replace another; by still slower process and at great cost the soils which are now being eroded may be replaced from the subsoil or the decay of rocks below; but the deposits of coal which have accumulated during the geologic ages of the past were finished long before man came into existence, and there is but the one supply. As this coal is used it is completely destroyed. No new supply will come when the one now existing is exhausted. The destruction of the metals is slow, but the ore supplies are far more limited than the coal. Of these also there is but one supply; and the metals themselves are slowly but certainly wasted by wear and by various destructive agencies.

The need for an inventory of the mineral resources of the nation grows out of the fact that the production and consumption of these resources are increasing at a rapid rate, and that the mineral supplies for future use are limited.

We should therefore know the quantity of each of these resources available for future use; the increasing rate at which they are being produced or consumed; and the probabilities as to the continuance of this increasing rate. From such data we may form at least an approximate estimate as to the duration of the supplies; and through adequate investigations we may determine the possibilities of increasing the duration of these supplies by developing more efficient methods of production and use.

The incompleteness of the available data renders the making of an inventory of mineral wealth more difficult than that of forests and water resources, and illustrates the need of further investigation. However, the coal fields have been mapped with such accuracy that future discoveries of coal outside of the limits indicated for existing fields are not likely to exceed 1 per cent of the total known supply; and future investigations are likely to diminish rather than increase the estimates of the quantity available within these limits.

Our knowledge of the quantity and distribution of other minerals is less definite, but enough is known to prove that the deposits are limited in extent, and that at the present increasing rates of consumption the supplies of many important minerals will be largely depleted or exhausted before the nation has added another century to its history.

The data for this inventory have been prepared by experts of the United States Geological Survey from records of their investigations and other sources. In the papers by these experts accompanying the commission's report the data are given in detail.

It is not claimed for the statements presented in this inventory of the mineral wealth of the country that the data in all cases are of quantitative exactness or that all the data are of the same degree of accuracy in detail; but all available data have been considered, and only such as are deemed reliable have been used.

Even should future development prove that these estimates are 10 or 20 per cent in error, the need for a wise conservation of resources would stand out none the less prominently and positively. Thus the data for the estimates of coal have been published and distributed among geologists and mining engineers for six months, and the only changes suggested have indicated that the estimates are too high, and that the figures for the duration of the supplies should be reduced rather than increased.

Of all our minerals, the fuels which supply heat, light, and power for domestic and industrial purposes are the most fundamentally essential to the nation. The use of fuels involves their immediate and complete destruction; and increase in the use of other materials also increases the consumption of fuels for both metallurgical and manufacturing purposes, for as the nation has now passed its early development stage, manufacturing, with consequent use of fuels, will increase much more rapidly than will population. A more thorough inventory of th fuels (coal, ol, gas, and peat) is therefore of prime importance.

Data concerning the ore supplies of these major metals have been prepared by Mr. Waldemar Lindgren, of the United States Geological Survey, whose report, largely based on the investigations of the Survey geologists, is appended.

Mr. F. B. Van Horn, of the United States Geological Survey, has brought together all available information concerning the supplies of phosphate rock in the United States. These are distributed along the western coast of Florida, along the coast of South Carolina, in central Tennessee, and in an area recently discovered in southeastern Idaho, northwestern Wyoming, and northeastern Utah. The data are not sufficiently complete to make a trustworthy estimate of the total existing supply.

The best estimate of high-grade phosphate rock that can be made at the present time is as follows:

Tons.

In addition there are large supplies of low-grade phosphate rock, carrying from 25 to 50 per cent of calcium phosphate, for which there is now no demand, but which may find a market after the high-grade rock, containing from 60 to 80 per cent of calcium phosphate, has been consumed. Doubtless the advance in price which will precede exhaustion will hasten the development of methods rendering the use of the low-grade rock possible. No quantitative estimate of low-grade phosphate rock can be made at present.

During 1907 the production of phosphate rock was 2,265,343 tons. The total amount mined from the beginning, in 1867, to the end of 1907 was about 29,200,000 tons. The rate of increase in production in the last twenty years has averaged 117 per cent for each decade. Should this rate of increase continue the available supply of high-grade rock will be exhausted in twenty-five years.

Increase in population and the development of intensive farming will eventually extend the demand for phosphates and other fertilizing materials already existing in the Southern States. A partial contribution toward meeting this future demand will come from a more complete and efficient use on the farm of animal excrement, including that which may be produced from sewage and other sources; but to meet any large demand for phosphate materials, recourse must be had to the mineral supplies.

It is probable that additional deposits of high-grade phosphate rock may be discovered, and the duration of the known phosphate product may be extended by more efficient methods of mining and treatment. In the phosphate industry the plan now in practice to some extent an iron mining, of laying aside for the future all material too low in grade for economical use at present, should be adopted.

Another means of extending the supply lies in discontinuing exports of this material. During 1907 the United States exported 1,018,212 tons of high-grade rock, or about 45 per cent of the entire output. The total amount of high-grade material exported during the last nine years was 7,504,519 tons.

Many branches of our mineral industry are based on additional mineral substances, which occur in greater or less abundance. Of these the supplies of abrasive materials, a quartz, feldspar, garnet, grindstone, infusorial earth, millstone, and such other minerals as mineral waters, mineral paints, low-grade graphite, talc, gypsum, and salt, appear to be sufficient to meet the needs of the nation's future as well as the present demands.

The supplies of sulphur, asphalt, magnesite, borax, asbestos, and fibrous talc, like those of coal ad iron ores, are clearly soon exhaustible, though if wisely used they may be reasonably expected to 114 107extend beyond the limits of the present century. Our supplies of manganese ores, bauxite, quicksilver, antimony, high-grade graphite, corundum, and mica, like those of petroleum, natural gas, copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, and phosphate rock, will be largely depleted or exhausted well within the present century unless known deposits are largely augmented by new discoveries. To this list may be added certain minerals of which only small quantities have yet been found in this country, such as nickel, cobalt, chromium, tin, platinum, antimony, bismuth, cadmium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, molybdenum, and tantalum.

Data concerning the supplies and uses of structural materials and their waste through fire losses have been collected and prepared for the commission by Mr. H.M. Wilson, of the United States Geological Survey.

The recent rapid increase in the production and consumption of mineral materials forms one of the important and striking general facts brought out in the work of the commission, and this fact is of vital importance in any consideration of the duration of these resources.

This consumption of mineral products has increased more rapidly than population. Thus, in 1880 we used 1.5 tons of coal per capita; in 1890, 2.5 tons; in 1900, 3.5 tons; and in 1907, 5.6 tons. Of pig iron we used in 1880, 200 pounds per capita; in 1890, 320 pounds; in 1900, 391 pounds; and in 1907, 686 pounds. Of copper we used in 1890, 3 pounds per capita; in 1900, 4.6 pounds; and in 1907, 6.4 pounds. Of cement we used in 1890, 70 pounds per capita; in 1900, 92 pounds; and in 1907, 228 pounds.

The striking features in the economic history of the nation during the past century were the development of agricultural and mining industries and the beginning of manufacturing and transportation. The striking feature in the economic development of the nation during the present century will be the rapid extension of manufacturing and transportation industries. This will both require and explain the continuance of a rapid increase in the rate of mineral production and consumption. Nothing can check this development save the premature depletion of the resources which are essential to its progress. The prevention of such depletion is worthy of the best effort of the nation itself.

While the data are not available for an accurate quantitative estimate of the losses connected with the mining, treatment, and use of our mineral resources, the facts in hand indicate that they exceed one-fourth of the total value of our present mineral production, or $500,000,000 yearly.

Even more serious than the question of waste of materials is the excessive loss of life in our mining and metallurgical operations. During the past year in our coal mines nearly 3,000 men were killed and more than 7,000 were injured. During the past ten years nearly 20,000 men have been killed and probably 50,000 injured.

The number killed and injured in connection with metal mining and quarrying and in the metallurgical industries during the past year is not known, but the number will doubtless add materially to the sad record in the coal mines. The seriousness of this record is increased by the fact that the number of killed and injured for each thousand men employed in the coal mines was greater in 1900 than in 1895, greater in 1905 than in 1900, and greater in 1907 than during any earlier year of our history. This is the natural outcome of the deepening of mines and the employment of an increased percentage of untrained foreigners, rendered necessary in our mining operations by existing economic conditions. It is to be hoped that the record of 1907 represents the end of the increasing progression of killed and injured, and that henceforth loss of life will steadily and rapidly diminish through the cooperations of miners, operators, state and federal governments, and the general public.

The extension of the supply of our more important mineral resources is absolutely essential to the future welfare of the nation. How to accomplish this is a problem demanding the considerations of the best science and statesmanship the country affords.

First of all is the prevention of unnecessary waste; and for this the individual and the State and Federal governments must cooperate.

All unscientific or inefficient use of resources is waste; and the most important element in conservation is the fact that the necessary waste of to-day may, through inquiry or research or through economic conditions, become the avoidable waste of to-morrow.

The waste of these essential resources being a matter of serious national concern, it is a proper function of the Federal Government to conduct such investigations as may be necessary to determine the nature and extent of the losses of life and resources and to indicate how they may be prevented.

The Federal Government has inaugurated and has well under way investigations into the nature and causes of coal-mine explosions, with a view to their prevention; into the character and value of our coals, and into the nature and extent of the waste in coal mining; concerning the fundamental problems of combustion, with a view to preventing waste in the use of fuels; and into the nature and extent 118 111of materials of construction, with a view to their more efficient use by the Government and the people, and to the prevention of disastrous fires. To these might to added similar investigations looking to the prevention of waste in the mining, treatment, and use of other mineral substances.

Such investigation being of service to all the people and to all the States, and being national in their purpose, may be conducted more efficiently by the General Government, as duplication in labor and cost are avoided where it would exist if the work were undertaken by the States or by individuals.

The cooperation of the States in this movement is essential as covering investigations of local problems and the enforcement of such legislation as might prove necessary in securing the fullest cooperation of the individual, who is naturally apt to consider first of all the question of immediate financial return on his investments. But the cooperation of the individual in the movement for the conservation of resources is needed, and may be counted on to the fullest extent that economic conditions will permit.

The duration of our mineral resources may be still further extended through investigation looking toward the substitution of common mineral substances for those which more rapidly approach exhaustion because of their rarity or greater importance, as, for example, the substitution of concrete for structural steel; of low-grade coals or lignite for those of higher grade; and of water power for steam.

Furthermore, in the case of certain supplies which are now being largely exported, or in the use of which waste is excessive, the duration may be extended for domestic use through such ownership or control as will prevent both sending out of the country and unnecessary waste.

Again, the prevention of waste, and hence the extension of the life of supplies, may be secured through such increase in the price of materials as will render practicable their more complete extraction and efficient use.

The miners and operators in our coal mines are both anxious to inaugurate reforms looking to greater safety and efficiency in mine operation, but the price of coal in the United States is too low to render possible many of the reforms which in other countries are successfully based on a price at the mine twice that in this country. It is believed, however, that when this situation is fully understood the American people will be ready and willing to pay whatever increase in the cost of fuel may be found necessary in order to guarantee the safety of the miner and to prevent the waste of resources, the preservation of which is no less essential to the nation's future than to its present welfare. The American consumer can regain the additional cost of the coal by handling and using it with correspondingly greater care and efficiency.

J. A. Holmes, Secretary, Section of Minerals.

The Chairman. Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to now introduce Governor Blanchard, of Louisiana, who will read the report to which Doctor Van Hise has just referred.

Governor Blanchard. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, the report which I am about to read has been explained to you by Doctor Van Hise, and is a compilation of a vast amount of material in the way of inventory taking of the natural resources of our country which has been going on since the President appointed the National Conservation Commission in June of the present year. This report is the result of the indefatigable labors of the Conservation Commission and of the special commission appointed by it for the purpose of preparing the report itself.

[The report in full as read will be found on page 13.]

The Chairman. Gentlemen, the suggestion of the commission to this joint conference for the consideration of this material is that the specific subjects—minerals, lands, forests, and waters—should be presented to the joint conference either by the chairman of the section or some member of the section chosen by him. In the belief that that plan would meet with your approval, and acting on behalf of the commission, I have invited Senator Flint to present to you more in detail the subject of minerals. After his presentation, if that be the pleasure of the meeting, the matter will be open for general discussion, with the single qualification, if I may be allowed to make it on behalf of the conference, that the governors be given the right of way. After the governors have spoken, the discussion will be entirely open.

Senator Newlands. Mr. Chairman, before this subject is entered upon I would like to make a suggestion regarding the question of inland waterways. In conversation with Senator Frye, who is chairman of the Committee on Commerce in the Senate, the committee which has jurisdiction over harbors and rivers, I inquired whether a hearing before that committee could be secured during this week, and he replied that he would be glad to meet the pleasure of the conference either upon Thursday or Friday of this week. I present the matter now, in order that this conference may take the proposition under consideration and come to some determination regarding it.

In this connection it may be well to state that the Inland Waterways Commission, which was appointed by the President over a year ago, or pretty nearly two years ago, is now a section of the National Conservation Commission, the chairman of that section being the Hon. Theodore E. Burton, chairman of the Rivers and Harbors Committee of the House. That commission, which is purely a commission appointed by the President without statutory sanction, simply in aid 144 140of his power to make recommendations to Congress regarding legislation, entered upon an inquiry and examination and visited the different sections of the country and inspected the main rivers of the country and made a general inquiry of the subject. Prior to their report I introduced in the Senate of the United States, in a tentative way, a bill based upon discussion already had in the commission, simply with a view of testing the sentiment of the country. Later on the report of the commission was made and was sent by the President to Congress.

This bill was referred to the Secretary of War for his opinion and to the Inland Waterways Commission for its opinion. The Secretary of War approved the main features of the bill, but made some suggestions which were intended to bring it more clearly within the constitutional sphere of national action. The Inland Waterways Commission also approved the main features of the bill. That bill was considered by a subcommittee of the Committee on Commerce in the Senate and was reported favorably to the full committee with certain amendments. The bill. I will state briefly, covered, first, a waterway fund of $50,000,000. Its second provision gave the President of the United States the power to cause investigations and surveys to be made, and, in aid of that power, to appoint a commission to be known as the “Inland Waterways Commission,” which was to bring into coordination all the scientific surveys of the Government relating to water, including the various bureaus of reclamation, the Geological Survey, and other surveys. It then provided for the coordination of the national surveys and their collaboration in this work. It also provided for cooperation of the States and municipalities, and it provided that whenever the fund was diminished by expenditures to $25,000,000 a bond issue should be made to make up the deficiency, bringing the fund back to its original amount of $50,000,000. It also gave this commission, whenever a project was deemed feasible, the power to enter upon the work without further action of Congress.

This bill was amended in certain material particulars by the subcommittee. I will not take your time now by stating what these amendments were.

The bill was then considered in full committee, but as there was considerable difference of opinion it seemed clear that the bill could not be presented to the Senate in time for consideration at the last session. At the suggestion of the President I introduced a shorter bill providing simply for the creation of a commission without defining its powers beyond giving it the power of investigation and a small appropriation. That bill was favorably reported to the Senate by the Committee on Commerce, but unfortunately there was not time for its consideration in the closing days of Congress.

Now, I would suggest that public opinion, of course, operates powerfully upon Congress regarding these matters. These great bodies throughout the country make public opinion. Congress always follows public opinion when it is clearly ascertained upon any subject, and it seems to me it would be well, while this great and influential body of men is here, that its leading men should appeear before the Committee on Commerce in the Senate and give their views and the views of this body and the views of the various sections of the country regarding this important question and the importance of providing a sufficient fund and the importance of providing for immediate commencement and consecutive prosecution of this great work.

I would suggest that perhaps Friday morning would be the more convenient time, as this conference is to be in session Wednesday and Thursday, and that a committee be appointed by the conference for the purpose of presenting this matter before the Committee on Commerce in the Senate upon Friday, at 10.30 o'clock.

The Chairman. Gentlemen, you have heard Senator Newlands's motion—I take it to be a motion?

Senator Newlands. I will make that motion; yes, sir.

The Chairman. How many members do you think should be appointed on that committee?

Senator Newlands. Have you any suggestion to make, Mr. Pinchot?

The Chairman. The only suggestion I have to make is that if the Senate committee is willing, it might receive all those members of the conference who may be willing to attend on Friday morning, and that you, yourself, arrange for the presentation of the subject.

Governor Blanchard. If the chairman please, what is everybody's business is nobody's business. If you say any members of this conference who desire to go may go, nobody will feel specially an obligation upon himself to go. I think that the Senator from Nevada is correct in saying that there should be a committee appointed and that it be made the specific duty of that committee to attend that hearing and present these matters.

Senator Newlands. I would move, then, that the conference, or as many as possibly can do so, attend the session of the Committee on Commerce at 10.30 o'clock Friday morning, and that a committee of such number as the chair deems advisable be appointed by him with a view to presenting this matter to the Committee on Commerce.

Mr. Lay. I would suggest to the chair that that motion be amended: That there be appointed on this committee a member from each State.

Senator Newlands. I will accept that with this proviso: That the chairman have the power to add such others to that committee as he deems advisable.

Senator Smoot. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me if we want to get the information before the committee of the Senate, the best way is for the chair to appoint say three men for the purpose of presenting the matter to that committee. That is what should be done. We want the information to be presented, but if one from every State here is appointed, with no one designated to present the matter, we are going absolutely unprepared. The Senate committee can not waste time. If you appoint three men for the presentation of the matter and let every representative attend who desires, you will have some result, but if it is not arranged in that way I do not believe you will accomplish anything.

Senator Newlands. I accept that suggestion—that the committee shall be appointed by the chair, consisting of at least one representative from each State, and that the chair select from this committee three men who shall have charge of the duty of presenting the subject to the Committee on Commerce.

Senator Smoot. I second the motion as amended.

(The motion was unanimously carried.)

The Chairman. The committee will be appointed at the earliest possible moment.

Without objection, I will now call upon Senator Flint to present the matter of minerals. I take pleasure now in introducting Senator Flint.

Mr. Hammond. Mr.Chairman, I hasten to relieve the apprehension of the audience, who are led by my friend Senator Flint to expect that it is my purpose to deal, as he has intimated, exhaustively with the subject of mining accidents. As a matter of fact, I have no available statistics to present upon this sudden invitation. Besides this, there is so much else of importance for discussion at this short session that I trust you will be satisfied with the general statement that I believe a very great necessity exists for improvements in the system of mining, with the view of minimizing the loss of life.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I am at quite a loss to know exactly how to discuss this or any other question identified with this movement. I certainly am not in a position to discuss the matter of mineralogy or mining from a technical standpoint, either as to the matter of waste or its chemistry or any other particular feature of it. If I were to say anything at all it would be to take rather an optimistic view of the situation so far as the matter of iron mining is concerned. It seemed to me, though, as I listened to the discussions of mining, both at this conference and the one held last May at the White House, that probably we got the pessimistic opinion in our heads somehow that within a very short space of time the iron resources of the country are going to be entirely exhausted. I am quite sure that is not exactly the case and that there is no immediate danger of our running out of iron. I remember in May Mr. Carnegie read a very delightful and very able paper at the White House, in which he said that the Lake Superior country, or particularly that portion of it located in Minnesota, where they originally believed they had five or six million tons of iron ore, had now, they were quite certain, a billion and a half tons of iron ore. The statisticians who are going to present figures here later during this meeting have now items from the Oliver Iron Mining Company, an institution to which mr. Carnegie is related in at least a very small way—the Federal Steel Company—estimating now from measurement made through the diamond-drill process, that they have two and a half billion tons of ore. If the product has increased a billion tons within a year and the production has decreased from 42,000,000 tons to 26,000,000 tons in the same length of time in the same territory, it seems to me we are going to have too much iron ore in the future. At least the press so far has put too much iron in the souls of Americans because of some of the conditions which obtain.

I am gratified to be able to bring to you—and I am not here to advertise Minnesota especially—my suggestion that we are sufficiently conceited in Minnesota to think we are going to be able to provide iron for the world for a long time to come. As a matter of news, and not particularly because it is of interest, but because it is germane to some extent to your interest here, we say that a few years ago iron was first discovered in Minnesota. The conditions have been materially or completely changed in the meantime. As a matter of fact, when the Mesabi Range was first opened up no one thought the commercial ore was of great value, being what they call 60 per cent ore. Then it ran to 55 percent ore. That is almost the standard now. Even out on the western part of the Mesabi Range they are 162 158mining very profitably 35 per cent ore, because the steel company understand the conservation of their natural resources. Because of a washing process, they raise the standard of that ore to 50 or 55 per cent for commercial uses.

The great bodies of ore which have been discovered have been made useful by the conservation of their resources. West of the Mesabi Range we are opening what they call the Cayuna Range, and the ore is in very much deeper bodies, not of so high grade, but all new. The most sanguine promoters, if I might use that term, declare that the finding of ore on the Cayuna Range will vastly eclipse the Mesabi Range; so that we have every reason to believe that within a few years we are going to develop sufficient bodies of ore to take care of all the needs of this country for the next two hundred years, and, as Mr. Cole, the general superintendent of the Oliver Mining Company, said something like a year ago, when I was talking with him about it, “We have just begun to scratch the earth.” I do not say that in a spirit of boastfulness, so far as Minnesota is concerned, or so far as the National Government is concerned. It is rather a matter of humiliation to me to know that those great iron resources of the country at one time belonged to the Federal Government and later to the government of the State of Minnesota, and by reason of the lack of interest of the people in the conservation and ownership of their natural resources, they have allowed them to pass into the hands of special interests. They are there, and they belong not to the National Government, not to the State of Minnesota, except in small degree. It is very important the National Government and the state government should conserve that which they do own and see to it that it does not pass into the hands of private owners in the future. But it is a matter of humiliation that it has gone as far as it has and into the hands of private parties.

[ Let me say in behalf, too, of the private individuals who own it, that owning a private enterprise means the conservation of its natural resources. There is no question of the interest of the steel company in the protection and preservation of their own property, and because it is a private enterprise they will look after the details of their business much better and much closer than state or governmental enterprises are looked after. Because of the things they have done, the Federal Government and the state government, too, can learn a very valuable lesson, and that is, in all material things at least, to conduct their business on the same broad lines of business interest which characterize a successful business man in the conduct of his private affairs. When we have divorced our public business from political considerations—and I was much moved by a remark I think by the President yesterday, who said that this should not be made the vehicle for the enhancement of any political fortunes—then the situation will be more desirable. If we will use as a measure of public good, using for our own benefit and our own advantage the lessons which come to us from successful business man's enterprises, we will do much to conserve our natural resources in that particular direction.

Now, this steel company not only own mines in Minnesota, but mines in Alabama—and when I speak of Alabama I mean the Birmingham district—and has, by reason of experience, learned conserve natural resources; and I am quite amused, so far as the iron industry is concerned, to hear people talk about the waste.

In the Mesabi country, as a matter of fact, I want to say it is all open-pit mining, not the underground mining; that is still done somewhat on the Vermillion Range. But in the Mesabi Range, the greatest iron range in the world, it is all done by open-pit mining just as you would strip off a quarry or a sand pit and then start to dig the open ore; and there is absolutely no waste to it at all. There is no waste in the mining in the Mesabi Range. A great waste existed a few years ago because there was no such thing as a by-product, no such thing as coal tar or gas or cement, etc., until to-day, as was suggested this morning, as in the conducting of a great many other private enterprises, those things have become of vast importance and have much to do with the profit of their enterprises.

I am not going to discuss the matter any further than to say that I do take an optimistic view of the situation.

They say while there are billions of tons of ore, possibly the grade is low. The average grade would probably run 50 per cent in that Mesabi Range. The Krupp Works in Germany do business with iron which averages 29 per cent, and if the Krupp industry in Germany uses the average standard of ore in Germany, and that the average is 29 per cent. I think there is no particular alarm to be felt about Minnesota ore. But in the country generally, there is no necessity for alarm at this particular time so far as iron is concerned.

I realize iron is a different proposition from what we meet in coal, for instance, because the iron is not, after all, destroyed. It is like some of the other minerals—always with us in some form or another. Where coal is consumed it is gone forever. It is not entirely so with iron ore. We are not particularly alarmed with that particular feature of it in our country. We are interested, so far as the development of iron interests is concerned, and the conservation of the natural resources, because the conservation thereof, in my judgment, if it means anything, means the private development and private exploitation of the industry much along the line suggested by Mr. Walsh.

We say it is kindred to or interrelated with the matter of transportation, and because of the fact it is so in the Middle West, the matter is very important, because with us it is a problem of distribution rather than a problem of mining or the value of the thing itself. For that reason, because we are the greatest iron mining district in the world, because of the fact that we re interested as a mining district, we are interested in this work of an inland waterway and believe that forestry and the inland waterways are kindred and can not be separated from each other.

I believe the great problem for this conference and the great problem for the country in the future is the development of inland waterways. I believe the greatest investment this nation can make to-day, bonded or otherwise, is to construct a canal from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. It may cost $500,000,000. Estimates have been made at $400,000 a mile. A thousand miles would cost $400,000,000, practically the capitalization of a private enterprise such as the Milwaukee or Northern Pacific, and much less than the capitalization of some of the larger railway systems.

This would solve the matter or rate regulation in the interior of the country and would make unnecessary future discussions between sections or political parties as to whether federal control or state 164 160control is best, because then the matter of competition and the matter of reform or better system of transportation would solve that matter of itself, and because then, too, we would have a great route of transportation which belonged not to private enterprises, but which would always be the heritage of the people of this country not only to-day but in the future, and such a canal as I have spoken of, with lateral and spur canals, possibly, would have much to do with the conservation, in my judgment, of the fuel. I believe it would pay for itself every fifty years in the matter of the saving of fuel alone, and would pay for itself every ten or twenty years in the reduced cost of transportation to the people.

We are interested in these things and we are interested in water particularly.

Minnesota is practically the watershed of the continent. Some of you people who are further south must remember that we start the Mississippi River down your way. We have our streams and our forestry and our mines and all those things up in Minnesota, and we are interested in the public conservation of the resources of this country—forests, water, mines, and so forth.

My own opinion is that the proper conservation consists in the proper exploitation and proper development rather than to discontinue the use of it, as, for instance, in Sweden, where I believe the amount of iron ore is limited to 5,000,000 tons per year. We want all those things to use as we need them, but we must properly exploit them and properly develop them. If the work is to be done, it must be done scientifically. It has always been my opinion that this problem was not a politician's problem at all, but that it was after all an engineer's problem. I realized this morning, as I looked at this conference and as I have watched it from the time I came into this room, that the politician is going to eliminate himself from this conservation work, and that the plodder, the man of whom the President spoke yesterday, using him as as a type of man, who sits at his typewriter desk and works overtime without any pay or hope of ever getting any, is the man who will have to take it up and carry it on.

I remember at the conference last year at the White House all the governors of the States were there who could be present. Some of them came in to look over the premises to see whether it was really, after all, a desirable place to live at some time in the future. Having satisfied their curiosity, a great many of them are not here now.

A Voice. You are still here!

Governor Johnson. And always will be on such an occasion.

Many of their conference, having met in the White House, were satisfied with one experience, and then the politician having satisfied the public as to himself, and having satisfied himself as to the public, so far as he was concerned, however, left the work to go to someone else, and there is not that manifestation of interest which was displayed a little while ago, but it is going to grow just the same. This movement, if I understand it, is bigger than the Government, it is bigger than the conferees, it is bigger than the conference, it is bigger than the nation itself, and I am of the opinion we will all live to see the day when history will write into its pages the greatest achievement in the record of this nation's present chief, who made possible the conference last May, and who made possible this conference, 165 161because out of it and because of the activity of the scientific men of this country will come great good for the future of our country.

As I said at the outset, I am not a pessimist, neither am I unduly an optimist. I want to say to you, however, that if you will give us, by canal or otherwise, as good a made of transportation as Germany has, for instance, we will guarantee to furnish you all the iron that this country