uare miles of
soil have been destroyed as the result of forest denudation, and that
destruction was then proceeding at the rate of one hundred square miles
of fertile soil per year.. .. The Mississippi River alone is estimated
to transport yearly four hundred million tons of sediment, or about
twice the amount of material to be excavated from the Panama Canal. This
material is the most fertile portion of the richest fields, transformed
from a blessing to a curse by unrestricted erosion.... The destruction
of forage plants by overgrazing has resulted, in the opinion of men most
capable of judging, in reducing the grazing value of the public lands by
one-half."

Here, then, was a problem of national significance, and it was one which
the President attacked with his usual promptness and vigor. His first
message to Congress called for the unification of the care of the forest
lands of the public domain in a single body under the Department of
Agriculture. He asked that legal authority be granted to the President
to transfer to the Department of Agriculture lands for use as forest
reserves. He declared that "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." He supplemented this
declaration with an explanation of the meaning and purpose of the forest
policy which he urged should be adopted: "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 in 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
wellbeing."

Nevertheless it was four years before Congress could be brought to the
common-sense policy of administering the forest lands still belonging
to the Government. Pinchot and his associates in the Bureau of Forestry
spent the interval profitably, however, in investigating and studying
the whole problem of national forest resources and in drawing up
enlightened and effective plans