Wise forest protection does not mean the withdrawal of forest resources, whether of wood, water, or grass, from contributing their full share to the welfare of the people, but, on the contrary, gives the assurance of larger and more certain supplies.  The fundamental idea of forestry is the perpetuation of forests by use.  Forest protection is not an end of itself; it is a means to increase and sustain the resources of our country and the industries which depend upon them.  The preservation of our forests is an imperative business necessity.  We have come to see clearly that whatever destroys the forest, except to make way for agriculture, threatens our well being.

The practical usefulness of the national forest reserves to the mining, grazing, irrigation, and other interests of the regions in which the reserves lie has led to a widespread demand by the people of the West for their protection and extension.  The forest reserves will inevitably be of still greater use in the future than in the past.  Additions should be made to them whenever practicable, and their usefulness should be increased by a thoroughly business-like management.

At present the protection of the forest reserves rests with the General Land Office, the mapping and description of their timber with the United States Geological Survey, and the preparation of plans for their conservative use with the Bureau of Forestry, which is also charged with the general advancement of practical forestry in the United States.  These various functions should be united in the Bureau of Forestry, to which they properly belong.  The present diffusion of responsibility is bad from every standpoint.  It prevents that effective co-operation between the Government and the men who utilize the resources of the reserves, without which the interests of both must suffer.  The scientific bureaus generally should be put under the Department of Agriculture.  The President should have by law the power of transferring lands for use as forest reserves to the Department of Agriculture.  He already has such power in the case of lands needed by the Departments of War and the Navy.

The wise administration of the forest reserves will be not less helpful to the interests which depend on water than to those which depend on wood and grass.  The water supply itself depends upon the forest.  In the arid region it is water, not land, which measures production.  The western half of the United States would sustain a population greater than that of our whole country to-day if the waters that now run to waste were saved and used for irrigation.  The forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal questions of the United States.