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.

Certain of the forest reserves should also be made preserves for the wild forest creatures.  All of the reserves should be better protected from fires.  Many of them need special protection because of the great injury done by live stock, above all by sheep.  The increase in deer, elk, and other animals in the Yellowstone Park shows what may be expected when other mountain forests are properly protected by law and properly guarded.  Some of these areas have been so denuded of surface vegetation by overgrazing that the ground breeding birds, including grouse and quail, and many mammals, including deer, have been exterminated or driven away.  At the same time the water-storing capacity of the surface has been decreased or destroyed, thus promoting floods in times of rain and diminishing the flow of streams between rains.

In cases where natural conditions have been restored for a few years, vegetation has again carpeted the ground, birds and deer are coming back, and hundreds of persons, especially from the immediate neighborhood, come each summer to enjoy the privilege of camping.  Some at least of the forest reserves should afford perpetual protection to the native fauna and flora, safe havens of refuge to our rapidly diminishing wild animals of the larger kinds, and free camping grounds for the ever-increasing numbers of men and women who have learned to find rest, health, and recreation in the splendid forests and flower-clad meadows of our mountains.  The forest reserves should be set apart forever for the use and benefit of our people as a whole and not sacrificed to the shortsighted greed of a few.

The forests are natural reservoirs.  By restraining the streams in flood and replenishing them in drought they make possible the use of waters otherwise wasted.  They prevent the soil from washing, and so protect the storage reservoirs from filling up with silt.  Forest conservation is therefore an essential condition of water conservation.