(Witness: Pinchot.) Mr. PINCHOT. Generally from seed. It costs much less to produce trees from seed than from slips. You can sow the seed in nursery rows and drills at very slight expense. We have produced young trees and set them in the ground in considerable quantities for less than $3 a thousand, so that we have produced them as cheaply as anybody ever has in this country. You asked me a moment ago why oak is sometimes followed by pine. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; or pine by oak? Mr. PINCHOT. Or pine by oak. In the eastern pine forests there is almost always an undergrowth of small, scrubby oaks, just vegetating near the ground and unnoticed as you go through the forestas high as this table or lower. When the pines are taken away these oaks that are already on the ground spring up and immediately, with the new light, begin to come rapidly ahead; and the change from pine to oak is made by the oaks that were already on the ground before the pines were removed, in very many cases. In other cases where oak is removed and pine comes in, the pine seed being a very light, winged seed, is blown from a distance and takes possession of ground that might have been occupied by the oak seed if there had happened to be plenty of acorns at the proper time. In other cases the character of the seed bed is more suitable for one kind of tree than for another, and that makes a difference. The CHAIRMAN. Then there is no natural law that would indicate a change from one to the other, or a rotation—that is, there is no natural rotation of the two kinds of trees? Mr. PINCHOT. There is an indication that there may be such a law, but we really know practically nothing about it. Personally,-I think it is safer to explain it by the definite facts that we do know than by any such general law, which may or may not have effect. The CHAIRMAN. So far as that general law is concerned, up to date it is largely a matter of theory, then? Mr. PINCHOT. I think it is. The CHAIRMAN. And there are no investigations that you have been able to carry on in your Bureau that have been able to demonstrate the existence of any such law? Mr. PINCHOT. We have not tried, because the thing was sufficiently explained to us by these other circumstances. The CHAIRMAN. That is, you have satisfied yourself with the obvious? Mr. PINCHOT. With the definite things that we could put our fingers on. The CHAIRMAN. Rather than looking for the occult? Mr. PINCHOT. Yes, sir; we satisfied ourselves with the things that we could influence rather than with the things that we could not. We are trying to control the forest all the time and are looking for means of controlling it. The second great branch of our work is the handling of the Government's own forests, our national forests, of which there are now 127,000,000 acres, approximately. These forests lie in all the Western (Witness: Pinchot.) States and Territories; and, as I described earlier, they control substantially the whole economic progress of the West by controlling the supply of wood, water, and grass. The estimated value of the production of timber and forage and the maintenance of stream flow, through the use, protection, and improvement of the national forests by the Forest Service, is at least 2 per cent a year on $1,400,000,000, the estimated value of the forest reserves, or $28,000,000. Since the latter are increasing in value not less than 10 per cent yearly, this estimate is most conservative. The CHAIRMAN. You may state right here how it is that the forest is the conservator of the water supply, if I use the right term. Mr. PINCHOт. The forest conserves the water supply by keeping the surface porous and absorptive, and therefore allowing the melting snow and the rain to penetrate the soil instead of running off rapidly over the surface. The CHAIRMAN. That is, it absorbs rather than sheds the water? Mr. PINCHOT. Secondly, by supplying, by the waste from the trees, a mechanical obstacle to the movement of the water. It is as though I should take a tablecloth, lay it over that table, and then tip the table up and begin to pour water on it. A good deal of the water would fall off the lower edge of the table, but it would go very slowly, being retained by the tablecloth; whereas if I should pour it on the bare table, it would run off almost without wetting it. The CHAIRMAN. That is, by means of the leaves and twigs and débris? Mr. PINCHOT. Precisely. The CHAIRMAN. By the way, do those, as they decay, produce any fertilizing effect upon the soil? Mr. PINCHOT. A very strong fertilizing effect upon the soil. Mr. PINCHOT. Yes; very decided. The CHAIRMAN. Does the presence of the forests themselves induce a precipitation of rain? Mr. PINCHOT. We suppose that the presence of the forests in the high mountains increases the frequency of the summer showers over those mountains, and that the total effect on precipitation may be an increase of 10 or 15 per cent. But the statistics that have been gathered in different parts of the world are contradictory, and the influence of the forest that we do positively know about is so important that I think we may fairly neglect the question of rainfall. and climate as an important reason for forest conservation. The CHAIRMAN. I judge from what you say that the area where rainfall might be superinduced is, to a large extent, circumscribed in any event? Mr. PINCHOT. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. So that it is not an important factor? Mr. PINCHOT. It is probably not a very important factor; but the definite, positive, and undisputed reasons why forests should be preserved are so immensely greater than these dubious ones that I do not think we need talk about them. The CHAIRMAN. That is to say, where you have the forests such rainfall as you do have is retained and absorbed? Mr. PINCHOT. Is made enormously more useful. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. (Witness: Pinchot.) Mr. PINCHOT. We know positively that the destruction of forests means the destruction of water powers, increase of floods, and diminution of the usable amount of water in the streams. The CHAIRMAN. That is because the rainfall of the year is more evenly distributed through the year by virtue of its being retained in the soil where the forests exist than would otherwise take place. It runs off in freshets or torrential flows if you do not have this mat of soil upon which are imposed the accumulations of the trees. Mr. PINCHOт. Exactly. The CHAIRMAN. To absorb the rainfall and retard its discharge into the valleys below. Mr. PINCHOT. Whatever may be true about rainfall, there is no question as to the effect of the forests on run-off. The CHAIRMAN. There is no question about the forests conserving the rainfall you have? Mr. PINCHOT. Absolutely none. The CHAIRMAN. Whether they increase the rainfall may be a doubtful question? Mr. PINCHOT. We do not care much whether they do or not, but they make all the difference between a usable water supply and an unusable one. One other fact as to water supply: It is often said that the forest does not conserve the snow in the mountains. The argument is made that the late supply of water in the streams is caused, not by the melting of snows which have been preserved under the trees, but by the melting of the great snow banks which occupy the gullies and remain throughout the year, and the argument is based upon this contention that forest preservation in the mountains has no effect on the amount of usable water which the snow produces. This argument fails to take into consideration the fact that the vast majority of the snowfall never gets into these great drifts in the gullies, but falling over the bare surface more evenly, either runs off rapidly and comes into the streams at once when the great thaws come, or is evaporated, while the snow that melts in the forest is absorbed by the porous forest floor and gets into the mountains themselves, which in the end become the great reservoirs of water. Every mountain is a vast underground lake, so to speak, containing immense supplies of available water which is given out slowly by filtration through the rocks into the streams. The CHAIRMAN. That is the result of the percolation from the surface down? Mr. PINCHOT. From the surface down. The forest is the reason why these vast underground supplies are continually replenished. The CHAIRMAN. Without the forest, and with a hard, impervious soil, the water would not remain there long enough for percolation to take place? Mr. PINCHOT. Precisely. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, it would be shed rather than absorbed? That is the proposition, is it not? Mr. PINCHOT. That is the whole story in two words. The CHAIRMAN. I suppose that when you come to this question of (Witness: Pinchot.) the gullies, the area is almost a negligible factor as compared with the total area which is affected by the snow fall? Mr. PINCHOT. Precisely. The CHAIRMAN. And no matter how great the accumulation might be, the area over which it is accumulated is so small that it is a very small factor in the whole problem? Mr. PINCHOT. Precisely. I have often seen snow banks in the high mountains during hot summer weather literally going off into the air. A snow bank on a bare surface under the rays of a hot sun would have absolutely no stream flowing from it. As fast as the snow was turned into water the dry air would take it up, and it would go into the air and be lost. That does not happen under the trees. So much for water. The development of the West depends, of course, on the development of its transportation facilities; and the railroads have never been able to discover a satisfactory substitute for the wooden tie, and the opinion of the best railroad engineers is that we shall always continue to use wooden ties instead of steel ones. Then no mines, or practically no mines, can be developed without not only timber, but vast supplies of timber; so that the mining interests of the West depend absolutely upon our keeping timber enough in the country to give them sufficiently cheap mine timbers to make development possible. The best paying mines are the lowgrade mines, as a rule, and they require vast amounts of timber. So that, in an absolutely definite sense, the preservation of the forests conditions the development of the mining industry throughout the western country, and in the East as well. Of course the lumberman's industry depends absolutely on forest preservation; and the farmer's business can not be conducted without wood for a vast variety of uses, but most of all for fencing. So that in controlling the supply of water and timber we preserve practically every essential industry of the western country except the grazing; and in controlling the supply of summer range, maintaining and improving it, and increasing its value and carrying capacity, we also find that industry depending on the forest for its continuance. The CHAIRMAN. What do you include as the summer range? That is, what particular character of territory do you designate as summer range? Mr. PINCHOT. I will answer that in a somewhat roundabout way, if you do not mind. The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. Mr. PINCHOT. The western range country consists at the lower levels of great deserts, mainly covered with sagebrush and similar arid-land vegetation, which are sparsely watered, are not available for irrigation because of the lack of large water supplies which can be put upon them, and which can serve no purpose whatever unless they are useful for grazing animals. Those are the winter ranges. Many of them can not be used at all except during the time when the snow is on the ground, and the stock eat snow instead of drinking water. At a little higher level come the spring and autumn ranges, which are useful after the stock are driven out of the lower country by the (Witness: Pinchot.) lack of water, or before the snow is gone from the mountains and the grass has come up. These spring and autumn ranges are mostly in the foothills or on high plateaus outside of the forest reserves. Next above these come the summer ranges proper, which consist of vast areas of sparse, open forest, under which there are grass and various other fodder plants; of the open parks scattered through the timber lands, and of the vast stretches of old burns, which cover probably a third of the western forest lands which once were timbered, but now are covered merely by grass and other minor vege tation. Then, finally, there is a certain amount of summer range above the timber line, useful only for sheep, and containing Alpine plants of great value for the finishing feed before the stock goes to market. The condition of this summer range, of which there is much less than there is of the winter range, is what determines the use of all the rest of it. If the stock can not get into the mountains and use these grasses, then they can not use the rest of the range; and when the forest reserves were made from time to time they put an end to the overuse of these summer ranges in a way that was rapidly destroying all their value. It is a perfectly possible thing to overgraze mountain ranges to such a degree as to destroy their capacity to produce foliage at all. The CHAIRMAN. Are all the forest reserves of the Government open to grazing by private individuals, subject to the regulation and control of the Government? Mr. PINCHOT. Subject to regulation; yes. The CHAIRMAN. Does the Government receive anything for those privileges? Mr. PINCHOT. It does. Two years ago, for the first time, we announced that a charge would be made for grazing on the public lands in the forest reserves, and we collected the first year $540,000 from that privilege. This coming summer we will get probably $600,000 or more. The CHAIRMAN. That is a net income to the Government, is it? Mr. PINCHOT. No; it is not a net income. The CHAIRMAN. What do we have to expend in order to produce that $600,000 of result? Mr. PINCHOT. That question requires this answer: When the forest reserves were transferred to the Department of Agriculture the income for the previous fiscal year had been less than $60,000, under the charge of the Land Office, and the expenditures $375,000. The gross appropriation for the two the year of the transfer was $850,140, think. The income was $767,000 for the first full year we had charge of it, and the net charge upon the Treasury was about $400,000 less than it had been before. In other words, we began at once to make the forest reserves pay. At the time of the transfer I agreed that I would never ask Congress for more than a million dollars for running expenses. The CHAIRMAN. You mean for the whole Bureau? Mr. PINCHOT. For the whole Bureau; but I would earn the rest, if they would give me the right to do it. This year I have asked for $900,000 instead of the million, and the income for the present fiscal year will amount to about one and a quarter millions. |