: SECTION OF A REDWOOD FOREST IN CALIFORNIA, SHOWING
WASTEFUL AND DESTRUCTIVE METHODS OF LUMBERING. THE TREES HAVE BEEN CUT
HIGH UP, LEAVING A LARGE PROPORTION OF WASTE IN THE STUMP. THE LAND HAS
BEEN STRIPPED BARE OF ITS TIMBER, AND IS IN CONDITION TO ENCOURAGE FIRE,
EROSION, AND DESTRUCTIVE FLOODS]

_The Forest Service and the Stock-Raisers_

The only remaining class opposed to the policy of the Forest Service is
that composed of the stock-raisers; and for their interests and welfare
the Forest Service has worked harder than for all the other users of the
forests combined.

That mistakes were made in handling the livestock interests; that in
some cases individuals were unduly hampered with rules enforced by
over-zealous forest officers, is not to be denied. It was a huge task.
Almost in a day the Forest Service sprang full-fledged into the world,
charged with the care and responsibilities of more than a hundred
million acres; to-day it controls a third of the area of grazing country
in the United States, whereon graze about eight million sheep and a
million and a half cattle and horses.

Trained foresters there were to be had in plenty, but men who knew the
stockman's trade, whose training fitted them to handle the vexatious
questions of range divisions, over-grazing, and relative injury done by
cattle, sheep, and goats, were hard to find, and when found were not
willing to enter the Service for the niggardly pay allowed by the
government. However, the Forest Service, with its ranger system, is
to-day training up a class of young men, who, in a few years, will be at
once expert lumbermen, scientific foresters, and excellent all-round
frontiersmen and stockmen.

In this work there have been no precedents to follow, no rules to look
to for guidance. Instead, rules must be made and tested through use;
precedents must be established and certain fundamental principles worked
out and made a basis for future government.

[Illustration: THE EFFECT OF EROSION ON A HILLSIDE FROM WHICH THE FOREST
COVER HAS BEEN REMOVED]

Further than this, every section has its own necessities. Rules that
would apply to Oregon and Washington, with their sixty inches of
rainfall a year, would not apply to Arizona, with its ten. One great
mountain region, whose waters drained off into the ocean and could never
be used for irrigating purposes, might safely be let open to all kinds
of grazing; while another equally large section, just as w