OCR Text |
Show CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE. Chief Forester H. S. Graves has just returned from an inspection trip to Alaska, and briugs back word that fires are doing an enormous amount of damage dam-age in the immense forests not reserved by the national government. Mr. Graves estimates that for the last fifteen years fires have annually devastated one million mil-lion acres of heavily wooded timber lauds, ami he calls attention to the fact that the government is not taking a single step to protect these vast forests. As the timber available for lumber purposes in the United States is fceqtam; ing rapidly exhausted, in the course of time we shall be compelled to look to Alaska for our supply, aud these forests should be protected. It is worse than useless to pass laws to keep the timber lands out of the hands of alleged monopolistic corporations and then allow forest fires to consume everything that looks like a tree on millions of acres of territory |