Chapter IV: Ohio--Her Beasts, Birds, and Trees: Aids to Higher (2)

While living on a farm the writer discovered a nest, nicely concealed by tufts of grass after being constructed, under the projecting end of a fence rail. At the time there were in it five eggs. This number increased daily until twenty-three eggs filled the nest, and incubation began. All went on happily, until one morning there was evidently great distress in that little household. The male bird was sounding his anxious alarm--going hurriedly from one part of the farm to that of every other--sometimes flying, sometimes running; stopping a moment here, a moment there; calling at the top of his voice for his mate, in his peculiar tone of distress. His unanswered cry soon told the tale--some accident, some ruthless hawk, some sneaking cat, or some other enemy, had captured and destroyed his faithful companion.

He kept his calling for several hours, sometimes coming quite near, making a low chittering noise, as if suspicious something could be told--that the writer could tell him where his love had gone. Far from it, he too was in search of anything that could give a clue to the whereabouts of the unfeeling wretch that had done the bloody deed--he too was excited, and would have executed the severest penalty known on the guilty one, if found.

The nest was occasionally observed during the forenoon, with merely the thought she might be testing the affection of her lord, or playing him a practical joke; but no, the eggs were, at each visit uncovered. About noon-day, his lamentations ceased, and hoping his mate had returned, the nest was again visited, and was surprised to find Bob on the nest, keeping life in the prospective family.

For several days he left the nest frequently to make further search for his missing sweetheart. One morning, as usual, I called to see how the little widower was getting along, and found nothing but a bundle of shells--every egg had been hatched. Not far from the nest was heard a crickety sound--“chit, chit, chit”--and soon discovered Bob with his brood. He continued to care for the motherless young, as the writer can testify from frequent meetings, and reared a fine, large covey, which received protection and sympathy during the following fall and winter, of all the farm hands and sportsmen, who knew him and his well-behaving family.

Quail are not strictly granivorous. In autumn and winter they subsist chiefly on grain, berries and weed seeds. But in the spring and summer their food is almost exclusively composed of worms and insects. While Henry William Herbert extols the benefits the agriculturist derives from the consumption of weed seeds by these birds, he does not seem to have been aware the quail is the greatest worm and insect enemy of all the birds of North America, and are of more valuable service to crops and trees than all other birds combined. A few coveys carefully preserved would protect the farmer against the ravages of many destructive insects, which are more to be feared than the “rag-weed, the dock, or the brier.” The writer examined one accidentally killed, several years ago, in the month of June, and its crop contained seventy-five “_potatoe-bugs_,” besides numerous smaller insects. And, if for no other reason, the farmer should protect the bird as his best and most reliable exterminator of worms and insects, which, if undisturbed, accumulate to the great detriment of growing grain and grass, and to orchards and gardens. The quail regards man as his friend, though a stranger to his sympathy and protection. If not for ill-treatment and general manifestation to exterminate his species by those whose friendship he courts, he would soon become quite as domestic as the barnyard poultry. In fact, he frequently presses his claims perseveringly in this line by establishing partnership and social relations with domestic fowls. It is not uncommon to find a hen and quail occupying the same nest, until the complement of eggs are deposited by each, at the end of which time the quail usually submits the incubation to her partner.

Quail are pursued by man, beast, bird, and reptile; but with a fair opportunity and timely warning they manifest a wonderful faculty for evading their foes; and, excepting the “pot-hunter,” they are provided with ample means for self-preservation. He who steals upon a covey while enjoying the sunshine by some stump, log, or fence-corner, seated in a space less than the circumference of a half-bushel measure, and betrays a confidence by firing upon them in this unsuspecting attitude, filling his bag with the dead, and marching off with the brand of “sneak-thief” upon his brow, is a “pot-hunter.” He, too, who, with a show of indifference, rides about, pretending to be overseeing his own affairs, whistling around until the poor unsuspecting birds, in order to get out of his way, unconsciously walk into a net prepared for them, and as a reward for this confiding friendship triumphantly mashes their heads, is a pot-hunter. Against such the bird has no protection.

When coveys have warning of danger, and wish to evade detection, they will conceal themselves from their enemies, in a most magical manner, by a singular concerted action, seemingly, withholding their “scent,” so it is often impossible for the best dogs to detect them, even in the most favorable cover. It is quite amusing to witness the changes that come over the amateur sportsman when he fails to put up his birds. He knows where they are, at least he thinks he does, for he “marked them down” in the meadow of short grass within a few yards of a stump or tree. Then, it is such a commentary on his dogs, for he knows they are all right--never better, truer noses; still they go over and over, round and round, without winding a bird, or coming to a point. There! that dog has flushed a bird! Now he is assured the whole covey are within twenty feet of that spot; and he renews his search, and keeps his dogs going over and over the same locality, until both dogs and gunner, disgusted, quit the place.

How they got away, and where they all went to, and why that single bird remained where the covey went down, and why the dogs did not point that bird, all passed through the mind of the hunter, as he marched on in search of better luck.

The amateur perhaps meets his experienced friend, to whom he relates his disappointment, and who in reply proposes to return to the meadow of the “marked down” covey. After a time they do so, and every dog at once winds his bird; and each come to point--these are flushed and shot at. The dogs are made to move cautiously, and again the trio stand, each having a bird under point. This is repeated until every bird has gone the gauntlet.

Quail shooting has been, but is no longer, an interesting field sport in Ohio. Wing shooting, while diminishing the aggregate number, by subtracting from each covey, does not often destroy the entire family, and under proper legislation, has its benefits and advantages, and generally insures the preservation of an abundance to propagate another season. The sport, also, to some extent, draws from the destructive spoils of the pot-hunter and trapper, making the birds coy, suspicious and not easily seen. True, there is a possibility that the sportsman with dog and gun may destroy a whole family by shooting on the wing. A chapter of this kind occurred to the writer. While riding along the road in a buggy with a friend, our pointer companion came to a stand some distance in front, with nose and tail paralleled to the line of fence. The birds rose by concert in line along the fence, while the rear bird, or first to rise was covered and fired at. The atmosphere was so the smoke obscured results, excepting that of a wounded bird crossing the road for a sorghum field. An effort was made to intercept and capture it, but failed. The friend who sat in the buggy and had a good view of the situation, declared every bird fell. A walk over the ground proved it true, as from the first to the last in the distance of about twenty yards or more, eleven dead birds were picked up. The next day on passing the spot, the dog came to a point on a wounded bird, which was captured and killed as a kindness. Here the whole covey was exterminated; but as the perpetrator felt “sorry” for the act, and did not intend it, and would never do it again, it should not be considered unpardonable.

The quail is a bird favorable to the happiness of man and advancement of civilization, is of inestimable value as a permanent resident, for the reason he is independent of forests for the maintenance of existence and perpetuation. He is the bird of field and farm and the only one from which a single pair can produce and rear to maturity more than half a hundred young in one season, to present as choice morsels of food for the weary farmer and protector.

It is comforting to the sportsman to feel assured there is one resident game bird the iniquity of the pot-hunter can not exterminate. So long as forests and mountains last, the Ruffed Grouse will be able to maintain an abiding place. And many are the pleasant reminiscences of the hunter connected with the pursuit of this wary bird; it is a sport once enjoyed can never be lost from among the sunny associations of the past. Even the name brings to view the ragged mountains, rocky ravines, shady dells, babbling brooks and quiet streams in forests, ripe with every shade and tint of autumn colors, quiet secluded places where nature reveals her sweetest charms in inimitable splendor that mocks the artist’s pencil and poet’s pen--the home and haunts of this beautiful bird.

It does not seem reasonable that the indifference of the people should permit the depopulation of the earth of all its birds! It is sorrowful to contemplate a place where no bird exists excepting the “English sparrow.” Of the known species, amounting to over five thousand, that once glorified the life and beauty of the earth, more than one-half the number has already disappeared forever.

The Chicago Tribune, of August 11, 1895, on the “Destruction of Birds,” tells the truth, a horrible truth, when it says: “If masculine greed and cruelty, and feminine vanity and thoughtlessness, are not in some manner restrained or punished, it is only a question of time, and very short time at that, how soon the earth will lose its birds.” That the Seattle Argus called attention to the danger of the utter extermination of game birds by the destruction of their eggs on the Alaska breeding grounds--ducks, geese, swans, and other migratory birds, seek the low lands along the Yukon river for their nesting places. The egg-hunters gather their eggs by millions in these as well as other localities in South-western Alaska, where the birds resort, and sell them for the purpose of manufacturing egg albumen, a commercial article. The destruction of these millions of eggs every spring and summer is rapidly reducing the number of game birds, and the flocks every year grow smaller and smaller. Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, introduced a bill at the last session of Congress for the protection of these game birds, but of course it did not come to vote, and it probably never will. The game birds will share the fate of the four-footed game; grow fewer every year, and finally disappear altogether.

“When one remembers that thirty years ago the skies were almost darkened by flights of pigeons across Indiana and Illinois, and that branches of trees were broken by their weight and numbers, and that the other day a wild-pigeon shot in Southern Indiana was regarded as rare a curiosity as a white blackbird, it can be realized how rapidly game birds are disappearing. The game birds which are not migratory are also hunted down in spite of game laws, and every year grow scarcer and dearer in the markets. If nothing is done to protect (more effectually) there will soon be an end of game birds. The greed of gain will end their existence.”

Of all the birds in Ohio and the North-west, the wild pigeon was by far the most numerous. Those who have witnessed their flight, from early morn until approaching night, all going in one direction, without cessation for a number of consecutive days, were ready to believe pigeons were as the sands of the sea, innumerable, and could never be exhausted. But, alas! inventions came, the foes of bird-life: railroads and telegraphs. And for many years, winter and summer, the pigeon was traced, pursued, netted and trapped, at feeding places, by gangs of pot-hunters, keeping tons of dead birds all the time in transit to the large cities. Year after year, from coast to coast, this bird was followed, invading the breeding places and destroying the young and old, until the wild pigeon now exists in history, and may be seen mounted by the taxidermist.

The birds that are not game, the women in their vanity and thoughtlessness are rapidly destroying those having an attractive plumage, and millions of humming-birds, orioles, bluebirds, starlings, indigo-birds, redstarts, redbirds, and many others, are annually slaughtered to gratify an _inhuman_ and uncivilized fashion. For more than ten years this destruction has been increasing, and birds are diminishing in this and other countries until extermination is near at hand. Jules Forest says of the bird of paradise: “They are so industriously hunted that the males are not permitted to reach full maturity, and the birds which now flood the market are for the most part young ones, still clothed in their first, plumage, which lacks the brilliancy displayed in the older bird, and are consequently of small commercial value.” As to the tuft of delicate plumes which are so much in demand by milliners, and sold by them as real, are often mixed with ospray tips, which, to the shame of womanhood, have so long been in fashion and are still used. I may state on trustworthy authority, that “during the last season one warehouse alone has disposed of no less than sixty thousand dozen of these mixed sprays.” And the question comes: Is there no way to stop it? Must bird-slaughter go on to gratify a weak and cruel vanity, that should be met not only with public scorn, but also by the strong arm of the law, to reach the possessor or the hat, as it does the fisherman and his net or the hunter and his gun.

As the country became partially settled and the larger game supply diminished by unseasonable killing, clubs of squirrel hunters organized and laws wore enacted protecting beasts and birds with a close season. The good, the social and intelligent, became members for what there was in it. These clubs entertained no secrets, and did not pattern after any of the ancient orders with which the United States appear overblessed, nor were they given to boasting of their pedigrees. No one ever claimed King Solomon was “the father and founder,” although he might have been; and members were satisfied and sanguine that Mr. Nimrod, the mighty hunter, for a _saint_, was in morals as good as any of them.

These clubs had also many improvements over ordinary societies. A candidate for membership was not obliged to ride a goat to get in, nor with bandaged eyes go down into a dangerous pit to search for the tables of stone that Moses brought home the ten commandments on. Neither had the clubs any use for a catechism of secret signs to let the brethren know when a member had been guilty of something unwelcome to society, and needed assistance. They were all Squirrel Hunters, and members recognized each other by the absence of society pins and want of superlative adjectives at the front end of their names. The only thing recorded in which these clubs resembled any other order or society was in having a great many glorious banquets. They cultivated the social and democratic principles, owing allegiance nowhere, to no one or any thing, but the government and country covered by the American flag.

The objects of these clubs were the study of natural history and to secure and enforce all laws for the preservation of game beasts and birds, as well as the summer songsters that give life and happiness to forest and field.

These clubs labored hard to enforce legislative enactments against pot-hunting and thoughtless destruction of birds, but found it more difficult to capture the violator and public opinion than to subdue British and Indians or frighten an army. People generally had embraced the idea that birds, beasts and trees could never become seriously decimated, and it was useless to offer them protection, which made it troublesome to obtain a verdict against offenders by either judge or jury. The motives of such prosecutions were generally misconstrued, or plaintiffs made subjects of sport or ridicule.

The following is taken from the records and proceedings of one of the earliest organized and most worthy game clubs in Ohio. It appears the offender was a lawyer, who enjoyed fine grounds and an elegant garden, and amused himself shooting little birds that came to share his bounty, or obtain a pittance by way of interest for the good they had by nature rendered. The club gave the lawyer notice and request to desist such cruelty, or it might become necessary to call the attention of the officers of the law to the matter.

To this the club received the following reply, worthy of preservation for its wit, humor, and literary ability:

“_To N---- E----, Secretary of Branch No. 3, Ohio Game Club_:

“MY DEAR SIR--Your esteemed favor of yesterday has been received, and
at an early date I hasten to reply, not knowing just what punishment
would await me should I fail to be prompt in my responses. As to the
‘birds of various kinds’ of which you speak, I move to amend in order
to make more specific and certain, by stating what kind of birds,
what number, when killed, and by what means. If required to plead to
the general charge, I would enter a plea of ‘not guilty.’ Permit me
to say that I only killed birds of _prey_, and I only _pray_ that
I may kill more of them. I always bury all I kill; I _berry_ them
before I kill them, and _bury_ them afterwards.

“I am exceedingly sorry that my fancied misdeeds have rendered
necessary a special meeting of the ‘club,’ or to have been the
innocent occasion of the least trouble to either the officers or
members of that useful and ornamental body. Be kind enough to say,
with my compliments, to the association of which you have the honor
to be secretary, that the doors of the Temple of Justice, like ‘the
glorious gates of the gospel of grace,’ stand open night and day, and
the ‘club’ will please consider itself invited to enter and become
‘involved in the intricate meshes of the law.’

“Allow me further to say that I expect tomorrow morning to be on my
premises, near the city, engaged in my usual and ordinary amusement
of destroying birds of prey; and as it is the ‘early bird that
catches the worm.’ I would suggest to members of your valuable
association, through their secretary, that they meet at an early
hour, say half-past five in the morning, either at Dodson’s store
or at the well-known grocery stand of John L. King, and proceed
in a body, in full uniform, to the premises alluded to in your
correspondence. It might be well to have music, and march to the tune
of ‘Listen to the Mockingbird,’ or such other appropriate music as
your orchestra may select.

“One other suggestion: I am constitutionally and proverbially
careless in the handling of firearms, and it may be well to make that
statement to the members of your organization, so that should a stray
shot fall wide of the mark at which it was aimed, they may feel a
sense of security behind such intrenchments as nature or art shall
have provided. Ice-water and sponges will be furnished free to each
and every member who attends, but no gin cocktails will be given.

“Very truly yours, H----.”

It seems an unanswered question, how the natives preserved the forests from fires, and maintained the numerical strength of the species of animals on which they subsisted. The countries in which Indians have been found subsisting by hunting, are known to have forests undisturbed by fires for thousands of years, and containing a full complement of all kinds of game indigenous to the locality. This country, at the time surrendered, was fully endowed with all the gifts of nature. Love had preserved the forests from fires, protected the game beasts and birds, and shown natural wisdom enough not to kill the goose to obtain the golden egg.

How these wise results were accomplished are unknown to civilization. But it can be stated as a fact, new countries have never suffered from forest fires or the destruction of their game at the hands of the Indian hunter. Even in limited and crowded reservations he manages to preserve the forests, and in some way to keep on hand a supply of animals to the full extent the conditions of nature will admit. The instinct to kill no more than enough for present use, though he may suffer from hunger the next day, probably has had a favorable influence on game and its preservation.

While practically a resident of an unsettled Indian country (the northern portion of Iowa Territory), in 1845, it was noticeable that there existed no lack of game, nor variety, although pretty densely populated with Winnebagoes, Sioux and Fox Indian, who derived their meat chiefly from the yearly increase of game furnished within a limited territory.

Soon after the close of the treaty with those tribes, made by General Dodge in the summer of 1845, at Fort Atkinson, the writer, with a friend, passed through the hunting grounds for more than one hundred miles, and saw a number of large flocks of wild turkey and larger game in abundance. We followed the deep-cut channel of the romantic Turkey river for sixty miles in the Indian country, and during this ride the young birds were seen flying from bluff to bluff, crossing the river on their daily round in search of food.

And we believe it is true: No game laws enacted by white man can prove as effective in the protection of game as those enforced by Indian hunters. The red man never scares game from the region in which he hunts. He steals upon the deer or wild turkeys with the soft tread of moccasined feet, and dressed in accord with the tints and tones of plain and forest, the animals are satisfied with trying to avoid his presence without quitting the region selected as their home.

An old-time hunter in the West makes the statement that ever since the general adoption by Indians of firearms for hunting, it has not been found that game has diminished in regions where the white man is an infrequent visitor. It is when white hunters invade their haunts, with the tread of booted feet, their clothes alien to surrounding nature and with dogs and bluster, that all kinds of game are bound to be killed or driven away. And as Sir Samuel Baker, the explorer, asserts of African game and predatory creatures: “Animals can endure traps, pitfalls, fire, and every savage method of hunting, but firearms may be used to clear them out from extensive districts.” Still, under prudent use known to Indians only, game of our forests and plains may be preserved indefinitely and in abundance of all kinds.

TREES.

“Half the mighty forest
Tells no tale of all it does.”

“Individual avarice and corporate greed will soon cause all the mineral lands to be stripped of their forests.... Wealthy companies have been organized, mills erected, and the most valuable timber accessible is being rapidly cut off. That which is every one’s property is no one’s care, and extravagance and waste are the natural consequence of negligent legislation.”[21]

The increasing destruction of the timber belts of this country is certainly enough to alarm the nation. The Census Office prepared for distribution a bulletin bearing upon this subject for the consideration of the people of the United States. The lumber production--which means tree destruction--in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan in the last decade increased twenty-nine per cent in quantity and seventy-five per cent in value, and according to the eleventh (last) census, the capital invested in the milling business in the three states named shows an increase of one hundred and fifty-seven million five hundred and thirty-one thousand dollars.

United States Senator Henry M. Rice, who spent considerable time in Northern Minnesota treating with the Indians, says: “This timber cutting is going on for fifty miles up the Baudette, North and South Fork rivers, and that the Indians declare that it has been going on for more than a dozen years by Canadian lumbermen.” It is stated on good authority that more than two hundred million feet were floated through the Lake of the Woods in 1894. And Senator Rice says: “So bold have these timber robbers become that they have built dams in the tributary streams for the purpose of backing up the water and floating out their logs.”

When these extensive thieving operations were conveyed to the authorities, one lone “timber inspector” was sent up in this vast district and made his headquarters in the wilderness one hundred and fifty miles from the nearest point from which he could obtain any assistance, and it is generally believed, in Minnesota, that the “timber inspector” failed to “hold up” several thousand Canadian robbers, who were engaged in floating American timber across the line and filling their pockets with gold.

The Minneapolis Journal has done much to call the attention of the people of that state, and the Nation, to the unparalleled destruction of this greatest gift of nature, and quite recently says:

“The reservations which have been ceded by the Chippewas in this
state to the government embrace the heaviest white pine forests now
available as a source of lumber supply. These forests are largely
contributory to the retention of the moisture which feeds the streams
and lakes that make the sources of the Mississippi river.

“Already there is much said about the great commercial value of
these pine lands, and there is not the slightest doubt that as soon
as the region is opened by the government the work of destruction
will commence, which will speedily lay bare the soil and subject
it to the drying influences of the sun and wind, or to the forest
fires, which will kill every young growth which appears, and destroy
even tree seed, which has been borne there by the winds. The result
of this will be the diminution of the sources of the supply of the
Mississippi, which will be felt by every water power company from
Itasca to Fort Snelling.

“These are grave consequences, and the question is: Shall the
denudation of this new region be allowed to go on without some
regulations as to cutting and forest renewal? There would seem
to be a good opportunity to bring to bear the world’s experience
in forestry. This reckless cutting and selling the forests will
bring temporary gain to the lumbermen, but will ultimately destroy
agriculture and water-power interests as well as the healthful
conditions of the country.

“In France, whole communities were ruined by the denudation of
their lands; and obliged the government to enter upon the work of
restocking this ruined section of country with young trees at a cost
of many millions of dollars; all to regain what had been lost through
indifference. But how is it now? The region of the Landes, which
fifty years ago was the abandoned country of little value, inhabited
by a few sickly shepherds, who wandered over the country with their
meager flocks, is now the most prosperous part of France. It has been
made so by the planting of forests, and has now saw-mills, charcoal
kilns, turpentine works, thriving towns, and fertile agricultural
lands, and a growing and increasing valuation, and the net gain to
the government by the expenditure amounts to over two hundred million
dollars.

“Not until the sheltering influence of trees has disappeared, the
climate made variable with sharp and sudden changes of temperature,
successions of thaws and freezings; not until springs and brooks
become dry in summer, and a failure of all kinds of crops and plants,
does the improvident ask or even wonder what the matter is.

“_Every reserve of timber in this country ought to be sacredly
guarded by the government_, and timber cutting be put under stringent
regulations, looking to the continued protection of the streams.
_Unless this is done the Mississippi river will surely change its
character._ It will become a shallow, sluggish stream, unable to
carry off impurities, and useless for navigation or water-power.
It will not take very long to effect this change, if the forests
are destroyed in the northern part of its source. A present gain
in lumber will mean very great injury to all other material
interests.”[22]

A special from St. Paul says--“From Rainy Lake to the Lake of the Woods, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, the entire country is covered with a heavy growth of timber and is mostly pine, and is totally uninhabited save by scattering bands of Chippewa Indians. That these two great lakes are connected by Rainy Lake river, one of the finest navigable streams in North America; and on which its branches and the Lake of the Woods, no less than twenty steamers and tugs ply from early spring to late in the fall, conveying stolen timber from the United States to Rat Portage, Keewatin, and even to Winnipeg, where it is manufactured and sent wherever a market can be found.

“Keewatin and Rat Portage are the centers of the timber depredations and act as a base of supplies for the depredators. Nearly all the numerous fleets of steamers plying on the lake find their home in these two towns. The Dominion Government considers its side of the line important enough to demand a station at Hungry Hall, on the Canadian side of the mouth of Rainy Lake river, as well as at several other points between the Red river of the North and the head of Lake Superior, but the United States Government, though knowing the amount of valuable timber in the district desirable, has no port between St. Vincent and Lake Superior.

“When it is realized that all this timber belongs to the wards of the United States, the Indians, or to the Government itself, it is hard to see on what principle the states can so neglect this great timber belt. Not a foot of this timber can be sold or in any way disposed of until it has been appraised and surveyed. And it was asked that the Minnesota delegation in Congress take steps at once to have Congress pass a measure authorizing the placing of a revenue cutter on the Lake of the Woods, and equipping two posts, one near Rainy Lake, and the other directly across from Hungry Hall, where one lone timber inspector is supposed to be. But has any thing been done? The State Senatorial Committee of Minnesota, in an investigation of frauds against the state, found the _timber pirates_ responsible for most all the calamities from fire which have befallen the timber lands of the state. After stealing millions of dollars worth of timber belonging to the state, in order to cover the theft, have started fires which have resulted in those terrible losses of life and property. Firing the lands they had fraudulently cleared in order to render the measurement of stumpage impossible, and thereby shut off any suits a commission might attempt to bring against them. In putting the torch to the ‘toppings,’ every thing is destroyed--stumps, young trees and frequently valuable timber, to the amount of many million dollars.”

In all the pine belts in the western country there is a loud demand by honest citizens, that the manner of cutting timber be severely regulated. It has been clearly shown from time to time that this forest destruction in the United States without restitution, is still going on at the enormous rate of over ten million acres annually, and must soon land the country in all the ills due to forest famine.

Senator Paddock, of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, reports that the United States Government retains somewhat less than seventy million acres of public domain, which is designated as timber or woodland, mostly situated on the slopes and crests of the western mountain ranges. The above estimate may be too low, but if not, the entire forests of the Government are scarcely sufficient of themselves to supply the vast demands of the country another decade.

In 1889, it was estimated that Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming contained fifty-three thousand square miles of forest--Colorado and New Mexico, thirty thousand; and that other portions of the public domain were covered with large and valuable belts, and of which the Hon. Secretary of Agriculture says in his reports: “We are wasting our forests, by axe, by fire, by pasturage, by _neglect_. They are rapidly falling below the amount required by industrial needs, by our water supply, by our rivers, by our climate, by our navigation and agriculture. It is high time to _call a halt_. The devastation of the axe will probably go on in the forests owned by private parties. Other forms of devastation _can and should be stopped by vigorous measures on the part of the Government_.”

“_Our only hope_,” says Secretary Rusk, “_is to save what forests we have still in public possession, ... not allowing them to be cut except under such conditions as will insure ample reproduction_.”

Six years have passed since the above important declarations were made, still nothing has been done to deter the thieves or ward off a pending calamity.

For future forest supplies the people of the United States must look to the general government which controls the national domain, holds the keys of the public treasury, and is responsible for this source of national wealth.

From various authentic sources, it is stated of the once-timbered countries in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and from the Russian Empire to South India, which are now uninhabited barren wastes, has been due to changes of climate, soil and water-fall, from the loss of forests. The once fertile valleys of Syria, with springs and brooks, and fields of grain and grass, are as parched and dry, and water as scarce as it is on the desert or staked plains--summer suns have scorched the unprotected soil--hot winds absorbed the last vestige of moisture--the air is filled with clouds of loose dust, and the naked mountains stand as monuments of departed glory, of the Roman provinces from the Caucasus to the archipelago.

Look at the wasted peninsulas of Southern Europe. What has reduced to skeletons the inhabitants of the garden lands of the nations of classic antiquity? Greece has become a barren rock, and Sicily, “the pearl of the Mediterranean,” a hospital of famine, typhus and purulent ophthalmia!

Has not the desolation in each been due to one and the same cause?--the destruction of forests.

Why then should history repeat itself on this subject in America?

As early as 1832, the wisdom of Mehemet Ali saw the cause of the poverty and distress, and applied the only remedy that ever has or ever will restore life-sustaining conditions, and commenced re-establishing forests on the sand plains of upper Egypt--Abyssinia and the slopes of the mountains--at the rate of one hundred thousand acres annually.

Trees, like beasts and birds, at one time existed in such vast and apparently incalculable numbers that it seemed improbable their presence could be diminished sufficiently to give them importance or value. To have trees removed by any means was looked upon by the owner of the soil as a favor; and those having charge of the public domain felt pretty much the same way. But to the man of three-score and ten years it is astonishing how soon the great forests have disappeared, or become so valuable and inviting as to tempt the mercenary to steal and the rewarded public official to permit. Trees have a value to every form of life--a value above the lumber they may produce or the moneyed wealth they may bring the possessor. It has for thousands of years undergone practical demonstration that forests determine the climatic conditions of any given country, and for this reason forests form an indispensable basis for agriculture, manufacture and commercial industry. They also bear a near relation to the health, wealth and prosperity of a nation.

These facts being so universally admitted, it may seem strange that a government which has from its inception been so interested in the welfare of its subjects, and which has assisted and encouraged in various ways so many sources of wealth and industry, should have overlooked the forests, from which the nation is drawing larger amounts than from all other natural sources combined.

The government has ever been devoted to the interests of agriculture and manufacturing; and by premiums, by exemptions, by protections, by model farms, by grants, by bounties, by patent rights, by technical schools, and by introduction of superior animals and improved machinery, has fostered well these industries. It has not been at fault, either, in donating large sums in the construction of canals and railroads and for the improvement of rivers and harbors. It has even taken an interest in the clam and oyster, and has stocked the rivers and lakes with young fish, that the devastation of these natural sources of wealth may be compensated thereby, and perpetuated as a national trust; while the springs and brooks and streams, the climatic causes of disease, the necessary conditions for national wealth and national health--in a word, the importance of forests for the nation, for the land, for agriculture, for the perpetuation of rivers--has received little or no official recognition. Few persons are so destitute of foresight as not to see that the fires and thieves, and increasing consumption, if continued at the present rate, can not fail to make this a treeless waste, a desolate, uninhabitable country, at no very distant date. Is there no way by which the remaining beasts and birds and trees can be preserved? Must the civilization of the North-west permit the pirates of destruction to take and hold possession of all its natural endowments? The clubs have been after the pot-hunter with legal enactments, and have crippled, but never as yet have they succeeded in exterminating him. He is still destroying the remnants of game, and is at large in the public domain, seeking something to devour.

The general government should no longer postpone a definition of its policy regarding _forests_, _rivers_, and its _millions of acres of arid lands_. The American people have been slow to realize the drifting of this country toward a forest famine and its destructive results. On the subject of forestry, until recently, representatives have been politically dumb, and, no doubt, would have remained so much longer had it not been for the inspiration of a few men. In January, 1872, ex-Secretary Morton presented a resolution before the Agricultural Society of Nebraska to set apart one day in each year and consecrate it to planting trees. This day was christened “Arbor Day,” and is now observed by law and proclamation in thirty-one states; has entered our schools and colleges, and forestry forms part of the curriculum.

Wherever Arbor-Day has been observed it has awakened a sense of inquiry; has taught the children the names, nature, and usefulness of trees, with a lasting admiration and love for them. From the influences of Arbor-Day, Nebraska has more than a million acres of planted forests, and Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Wisconsin, and other Western States fast following the good example. With laws, plantings, and premiums; with books, schools, and colleges; with the hearts of workers in it, forestry has built up a healthy public sentiment that must be felt. The Eastern States are also awake and glistening with law officers to protect their woods from fires and thieves; and by large premiums and exemptions from taxation, have greatly promoted the interest of forestry in their respective states.

Even the state that sold her birth-right--one hundred and fifty billion feet of standing forest for nine hundred million dollars--is not without influence for good. All these noble acts of the states and of the people will be heard in time; for the government of the nation is not given to disregard the will of the people, and has ever shown a readiness to take the front and co-operate with the states in every good work. But there is something more required of a government--the representatives of the people must do more than simply respond to petitions. In a free republican government the people are both sovereigns and wards, and they expect those who assume legislative and executive powers of the nation to understand political economy sufficiently to manage correctly the finances and the natural wealth of the nation with intelligence and superior wisdom. And in this direction it would certainly prove a most laudable act to withdraw from sale or entry for a long period, if not perpetually, _all_ remaining forests and all arid lands where the rain-fall is below twenty inches, and place the same under the management of the Secretary of Agriculture, with ample powers and appropriations to build up a grand system of forestry, surpassing in extent and wealth all similar institutions belonging to the monarchies of Europe combined.

Governor J. J. Stevens, in his final report of surveys for a railroad across the Rocky Mountains, called the attention of the government, in 1855, to the arid lands west of the Missouri river, between parallels forty degrees and forty-nine north latitude. He compared it in extent, climate, rain-fall, and other features, to the Steppes, which occupies about one-fifth of the Russian Empire, and quotes the “Commentaries of the Productive Sources of Russia” to sustain his statements:

“Among other peculiarities of the Steppes a very prominent and
distinctive one is the absence of timber, ... and opinions differ
greatly as to the possibility of wooding it anew.”

Since 1855, the Russian Government has arrived at one conclusion, and adopted a policy of reforesting this two hundred and forty thousand square miles worthy of imitation.

Let the Government of the United States do as Russia has been doing, and the steppes from the Missouri river to the mountains will be reclaimed and made to “blossom as the rose.” According to geological surveys there are seven hundred and fifty million acres of arid, treeless lands, incapable of successful cultivation without irrigation--but where trees can be grown--for experiments have shown that trees will grow where the rain-fall is insufficient for grain or grass.

According to J. W. Powell, director of the United States Geological Survey, on the water supply in the arid regions, it would seem if all the water run off could be impounded and appropriated to irrigation it would be insufficient to supply one-tenth of the arid districts. And it might be asked if the arid land in the Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Indian Territory, only about “one hundred million acres” can be irrigated and made productive, what is to be done with the remaining six hundred and fifty million acres?

Could the area entire, or any part of the arid lands be made productive on the most economic plan yet devised by irrigation enterprise in this country, the cost of such lands and their products could never become profitably utilized in commerce so long as the vast area of cheap productive soil of the United States, or even that of the North-west lies out doors, ready to receive the showers of Heaven.

When we recount the miseries and misfortunes of the eight hundred million people that meagerly subsist on the products of irrigated, treeless lands, it makes an irresistible hope that the government of this nation may never be induced by ingenious descriptions of co-operative systems of economics, nor less perceptible but more powerful influences of _speculators in western water-ways_, to adopt a policy that will make any part of this country and nation, a Spain, a China, an India, or an Egypt, for want of forests.

Every country should have a just proportion of the total area in timber to make it healthful and productive. It is far better to have a portion in timber than to have all the country clothed with herds or covered with corn. It is the order of nature, the necessity of civilization, and the only true basis for a happy, powerful and independent population.

As the source for national revenue, it is an interest ranking first in importance, even in dollars and cents; and certainly, if for no other reason than for the wealth there is in it, the subject demands the attention of the government sufficiently to enforce protection and perpetuation. Every year it comes--“Once more the forests of the far west are aflame,” and it is not only the loss in money, but such sections of country are ruined for all purposes beyond the power of generations to repair.

It may seem expensive to maintain an army of officers and employes to protect and perpetuate the forests of the public domain. But notwithstanding it would require large appropriations, it would repay the outlay many thousand times in national wealth, for this great army would not be idlers. Nothing short of an organized department of forestry can protect and maintain this source of national wealth. The appropriation for this department in France has been five million dollars, and is returned with good interest.

Austria, not larger in extent of territory than the States of Illinois and Iowa combined, maintains thirty-two thousand forestry officers or employees and receives a large net income from this source; and reports show that Germany has an annual income of fifty-seven million dollars from an area of thirty-three million acres of timber, and it is estimated that no more is harvested each year than is compensated by growth and reoccupation of wasted ground. For, forest preservation does not mean that trees shall not be cut down, but that they shall be used, while all the conditions for their reproduction are steadily maintained from year to year, using if necessary, an amount equal to the production by growth. This requires planting, and tree-planting and forestry mean labor in this country as it does in Europe. The United States without Alaska, is, I believe, about nineteen times larger in area than Germany, and to be proportionately equal with this foreign power, the United States should have under control of the government an area of _six hundred million acres as a reservation for timber to supply the public necessities of the near future_. And it should be done without delay; the arid lands and forests along the streams and lakes that make the sources of the Mississippi and other navigable streams, should be dedicated forever to the cultivation of timber.

And here the labor question is solved. Every government that is able to sustain itself, must have something for idle hands to do. The increasing supply of labor has alarmed many thinking people. _Labor is wealth_, but how can all find employment? Which means _bread_. And various suggestions have been made simply to furnish _subsistence_. But in forestry there is something better--a necessity, a demand for labor, giving profitable employment to a vastly greater number than any other public necessity; for the labors of a department or bureau of this kind would be as immense as indispensable; and could end only with the end of the race.

A forest of six hundred million acres, thoroughly organized and officered under the Secretary of Agriculture, would sink the post-office department and its patronage into insignificance, and would be the brightest star in the civil service solar system to those who elect a life in the service of the country. But this is not all--it would make the climate more healthful, the rain-fall more regular and abundant, the soil more productive, and in due time would exceed all other sources of revenue combined.

The immensity of the consumption of forest supplies can not be measured accurately; but some idea can be formed of its vastness, when it is known that the one hundred and eighty-seven thousand miles of railroads and one hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles of telegraph lines in this country consume each year the annual growth or a forest equal to _one hundred and fifty million acres_. And nothing short of a large area of well-managed forest will prove adequate to _future_ demands. What else can the nation expect when at present statistics show the annual consumption, or crop, exceeds in value seven hundred million dollars?

This is more than the yield of all the gold-mines and silver-mines, coal, iron, copper, lead, and zinc combined; and if these are added to the value of all the steamboats, sailing vessels, canal-boats, flat-boats, and barges in American waters, the sum would be still less than the value of the forest crop by an amount sufficient to purchase at cost of construction all the canals, all the telegraph and telephone lines in the United States. The value of the forest income exceeds the gross income of all the railroads and transportation lines, and is an interest ranking in importance far above all others in the United States.

If this country ever becomes a Dalmatia--changed from a healthful, fruitful and salubrious habitation to a sterile, sickly waste, with decayed cities and crumbling greatness, history will not say “the Romans did it.”

Man should ever remember prevention is better than cure. The worst of evils is prevented by the removal of the cause. And when the apathy and improvidence which now threaten the destiny of a rich and prosperous nation are removed, then, and not till then, can it truly be said that the lost Paradise of the Eastern Continent has been regained in the New World of the West. The people should understand, also, the inspired influences of living forests--trees--those musical mutes, upon those who breathe their sweet ennobling influence.

The finest agricultural climate, perhaps, in the world, fell to the lot of Ohio. But this state will soon be obliged to do something to offset the destruction that is still going on with the little groves. When it came into the Union, it presented the grandest unbroken forest of forty-one thousand square miles that was ever beheld on this continent. A forest interspersed with hills and valleys, springs, brooks, and rivers; with a soil most inviting to the aspirations of agriculture.

The natural conditions of things were such that the possessors of this inheritance soon desired occupation of the soil, and looked upon its trees with less favor than they did upon those who disputed their titles with the tomahawk. Indians could be induced to move out of the way, but trees were all disposed to stand their ground and take the consequences. Both were considered too numerous for easy advancement of civilization, and in the contest both got the worst of it.

Forests may flourish independent of agriculture, but the latter can not prosper without the former. This was not so evident, however, to the early inhabitant, who felt he had thrust upon him more than his share of perpetual shade, and every owner and occupant of the soil combined with his neighbor in a warfare of destruction upon trees, and millions, the best of their kind ever produced were killed by cutting a circle around the trunk and left to decay. These deadenings were to be seen all over the country, as fast and as far as settlements were made or contemplated. And now, in less than a hundred years, more than eighty per cent. of this great forest has disappeared, and only small clumps in agricultural sections can be seen in any part of the state.

The older trees that occupied their places in these remnants of woods have nearly all fallen by the hand of the axman, and the younger growths are being appropriated for various purposes, greatly in excess of possible reproduction to the remaining stock; and the time is not far distant, if things continue without change for the better, when the salubrious climate, with summer showers and productive soil, will become changed to one of uncertainty. The entire North-west is now on the very border of forest limit. Still thousands of portable saw-mills are moving over the states, destroying the remaining needful trees, and the rural districts will discover, when too late, that private interest is insufficient to protect forest lands in quantity enough to maintain climatic and sanitary influences without the aid of state government.