laced with dead and down timber to such an extent that it is a continuing fire menace, and he didn't have areas that were absolutely choked with brush; he burned them over.

Senator ODDIE. What has been the condition of the forest since the white man came and handled this matter?

Mr. GILMORE. Well, now, I can take you into territory that I was well acquainted with and knew as a youngster 20 to 25 years ago, and I can show you territory that I could wander through at will hunting that you can not go 10 feet off the trail to-day in, because of the fact that the dead and the down timber and the brush is so thick that you can no get through, and it is a continuing fire hazard. Of course I am a light-burning advocate. Don't misunderstand me. You would not dare to attempt light burning in certain sections at the present time, because you would have a holocaust because you have the collection of years piled up there. And if a lighted match ever gets into it or if lightning ever strikes it it will sweep everything in front of it, and it will clean everything as clean as this floor. But in the beginning it should have been attended to with the same care that the Indian used it and the stockman used after he came into the forest and prior to the establishment of the forest reserve.

Now, of course that is contrary to the principles of the National Forest Service. I argue with my friends in the National Forest Service on that subject, and I have positive ideas, but mine is purely visual experience that I have seen with my own eyes, and I know those conditions that will exist.

Senator ODDIE. Well, in other words, when these forests were turned over to the white man they were in pretty good condition?

Mr. GILMORE. They were in excellent condition, because I have logged them and hunted through them, and everything else, and they were good, open territory.

Senator ODDIE. Another comment I should make on your statement is that the nearer we can come to nature in these things the better off we will be.

Mr. GILMORE. Senator, you can not violate a law of nature and get away with it in any respect whatsoever. That is an established principle. And nature will clean up her back yard in her own way, notwithstanding all the efforts of mankind to the contrary. You can keep every human being out of a forest, not a human foot should ever be found therein, and nature will set her own fires in her own way and burn it up for you. She will clean it up. Take the records of the Forest Service and see the number of fires that are started by lightning. She will burn it. She is bound to do it. And you can not keep your fires out. You may for a time and for a very limited period, but eventually your undergrowth, your dead and your down timber, your brush, will pile up to such an extent that when a stroke of lightning hits that, Senator, she is going to burn.

Senator ODDIE. Again I would like to make a comment, that the Forest Reserve officials who have charge of fire matters are handicapped by conditions that have been brought on them which make their work exceedingly difficult. They have to face difficulties for which they are not responsible.

Mr. GILMORE. Yes; policies that have been adhered to for a long period of years. Mind you, I don't blame them. I am not criti

cising them as to the present time. I know lots of the local men, and I have the highest possible personal regard for them. But in many instances they are face to face with something that has been handed to them.

Senator ODDIE. Conditions that they are not responsible for?
Mr. GILMORE. None whatever. I do not blame them.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Gilmore, from your statements are we to deduce that you believe it to be a moral wrong and an injustice to the State for the Federal Government to commercialize the resources of the public lands for the benefit of the Federal Treasury?

Mr. GILMORE. Yes; were no adequate return being made to the State and to the local political agencies that are affected.

The CHAIRMAN. Would any return less than the full value of the grazing privilege be an adequate return?

Mr. GILMORE. I can not see it; nothing less than that would be adequate. I can say, Senator, in respect to some of those matters that were treated of yesterday, relating to lands outside of the national forest-they referred to the stock-raising homestead act as a blackmail act. As I say, I practiced a good many years before the Department of the Interior and had a great deal of experience in connection with them. I think I obtained the first patent for a client of mine that was ever issued in this State under the stock-raising homestead act. In respect to all those troubles that stockmen have and all of the complaints that you have heard relating to the stockraising homestead act, I can certainly say they are certainly not unfounded. I know that of my own personal knowledge. But I think this committee should go back a little bit and not blame it all on the stock-raising homestead act. The forerunner of the trouble was the enlarged homestead act of February 19, 1909.

The CHAIRMAN. The 320-acre provision?

Mr. GILMORE. Yes; that started the whole business. A man was to take up 320 acres of that land and cultivate one-eighth of the area, and in many instances he spoiled it for any future use. In the classification of certain of those lands I do not know what particular rule was followed. It was said you could not obtain title to merchantable timber, but I can show you instances in this State where the land was designated as coming within the purview of the enlarged homestead act, and it was all merchantable timber, every inch of it. In many instances those classifications were made without any men upon the ground whatsoever; I know that.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Black.

STATEMENT OF S. R. BLACK, SECRETARY-MANAGER CALIFORNIA PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a statement relative to the matter of insect losses in timber on the public and private lands in California. You have heard something of the decrease in the area owned by the Federal Government, which is somewhat over 20,000,000 acres. There is some 5,500,000 acres owned by private individuals, 1,000,000 acres of which is in the redwood district, on which there is no beetle loss, or about 4,500,000 acres in private lands as against 20,000,000 acres of Federal lands subject to insect loss.

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The average annual loss in California from insects, bark beetles, is a million dollars. Some years it exceeds that, and some years it is probably less. In many instances 1 per cent of the total stand is killed each year. We have records of some areas where in 10 years a quarter of the entire stand has been killed by bugs.

We feel that the Federal Government has not exercised sufficient interest in the protection of these areas from that loss. We further know that the same lack of interest has worked a hardship upon the private owner of adjacent land.

The present methods of control are old fashioned and very expensive. It is only where timber is worth $3.50 a thousand or more and where the insect loss is concentrated, that the private owner can afford to work at the present time. The same would undoubtedly be true of good business applied to Federal control. The Yosemite National Park has an area of 30,000 acres where 90 per cent of all tree growth has been killed by insects. I think you visited the Crater National Park. If you took the Fremont Road around the north side you could see the brown patches where 50 per cent of the timber on 25,000 acres has been killed, in that park. The CHAIRMAN. What insect infestation is this?

Mr. BLACK. It is the mountain pine beetle that is working in the Crater National Forest. In the Yosemite National Park forest the western pine beetle is working in the yellow pine, the commercial pine of this State.

I can not figure the value in dollars and cents of the loss in the national parks. I can not figure the actual loss of reforestation possibilities that this beetle is causing. The common practice in the pine country is to remove the matured timber and leave seed trees to reseed the area. That is the cheapest method we know of, and the most practical.

As soon as you remove the old stand-the bugs are in many instances left in the tops, in the stems, and in the slash, and they immediately collect upon the seed trees, and in many instances those seed trees are killed and there is nothing left to reseed the area.

So it is a tremendously big problem that is facing anyone considering the reforesting of cut-over lands. It just adds one more burden to the already large number-taxation, fire, and all the rest. That is one reason that the pine forests have not been reforested by private interests as rapidly as have the redwood forests, where there are ten trees now planted for every one that is cut.

(At this point the witness produced and exhibited to the committee a number of photographs showing the results of insect infestation.)

Mr. BLACK. We know that the Government would not be willing to appropriate sufficient funds to carry on insect control over the entire area of the State at the present time. It probably is out of the question for them to do so. But we do know that in the Eastern States where shade trees are affected by the gypsy moth they made an appropriation this year of $700,000, to be used with private money, for protecting purely privately owned trees, and last year that appropriation was over half a million dollars.

The CHAIRMAN. That appropriation was made by whom? Mr. BLACK. By Congress. What we want out here is a small appropriation made available to the western division of the Bureau of Entomology, whereby they can study this beetle, its habits, its flight, why it picks one tree instead of another tree, under what conditions it makes its enormous increases in number, and devise by experiment or other means some more economical method of control.

It is absolutely essential that we have it. The loss is great. In some cases private owners are now required to kill the beetle on the Government land as well as on their own, for their own protection. In many cases where their land is intermingled with Government land, they are absolutely out of luck. They can not carry on the control on Government land. The Forest Service has not the money to carry it on itself, and the loss goes on.

I think the answer to the whole question would be more economical methods of control. The Bureau of Entomology now has a personnel that is capable of developing those methods, we feel sure, provided they were given funds for that purpose.

That is all I have to bring before you.

Senator ODDIE. Mr. Black, do you know how much the Federal Government has appropriated this last year for the control of this insect pest in the national forests?

Mr. BLACK. On the western forests they have made an appropriation, for use on the Kaibab National Forest-I thought I had a memorandum of the actual amount of money expended for that purpose. It was in the neighborhood of $10,000, I believe, that was spent this last year.

Senator ODDIE. Just approximately how much, in your opinion, has the Federal Government spent for the investigation and control of these forest insect pests?

Mr. BLACK. For investigation and control I would estimate probably $75,000 in the entire area west of the Rocky Mountains. Most of that has been for the regular personnel of the bureau who are employed in assisting the private owners, telling them what the bureau is doing, and going around and showing them what to do and ways of control.

Senator ODDIE. In this area, can you say roughly how much damage in dollars and cents these forest insect pests have done?

Mr. BLACK. I can say that the annual loss from the western pine beetle and the mountain pine beetle in California is a million dollars a year, actual stumpage loss at $3 a thousand. The potential loss in pay rolls if that timber were worked up into lumber would be close to $10,000,000 a year.

Senator ÓDDIE. Are you familiar with the statement that was made by certain officials of the Government who are familiar with this matter before a meeting of our committee in Boise, Idaho, a few weeks ago, that in the whole country it is believed this loss will run from $135,000,000 to $150,000,000 per annum, including standing timber, young timber, and all?

Mr. BLACK. I do not believe they have overestimated the loss. I know that in Oregon it much heavier than in California.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe that it is not an exaggerated statement, that from $135,000,000 to $150,000,000 a year is being lost to-day from this cause?

Mr. BLACK. No.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe that this standing timber is a Government asset which the Government is bound to protect to the best of its ability?

Mr. BLACK. Absolutely.

Senator ODDIE. Have you seen a statement, made recently in the Manufacturers' Magazine, which gives the figures for all fire losses other than timber as around $500,000,000 a year?

Mr. BLACK. I have seen similar statements.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe that that is a fair statement of the loss?

Mr. BLACK. Based upon actual timber losses in CaliforniaSenator ODDIE. I mean losses other than timber, losses on buildings and personal property throughout the United States.

Mr. BLACK. Quite possibly. I have no way of checking it up. Senator ODDIE. This article states that something like $500,000,000 a year is expended in maintaining fire departments and waterworks to combat fires throughout the country. In other words, private owners of property expend approximately dollar for dollar in combating fires. From these figures the Government is expending about $75,000 a year to combat a loss to timber of approximately $150,000,000 a year?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Senator ODDIE. Do you regard that as ample?

Mr. BLACK. By no means, or I would not be here.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe the Federal Government should exercise the same care and make the same effort in protecting its property that private individuals make in protecting theirs? Mr. BLACK. That is what we think they should do.

Senator ODDIE. Does the present policy or lack of policy of the Federal Government in this matter result in discouraging young men from making this their life work, because of the failure of the Government to encourage them to take it up and to guarantee to them a life occupation?

Mr. BLACK. I know that is true in the insect-control work of the Federal Government; yes.

Senator ODDIE. Is this a work that requires highly scientific training?

Mr. BLACK. It needs a certain proportion, certainly, of very carefully trained technical men.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe that if the Federal Government should adopt a permanent policy in this work that more young men would be encouraged to take it up?

Mr. BLACK. I know they would.

Senator ODDIE. How far will this pine beetle jump in moving from section to section?

Mr. BLACK. I can only give one guess as against another. The experts themselves disagree. The mountain pine beetle, the one you saw in Crater National Park, it is claimed will jump as much as 2 miles. As to the western pine beetle, I have never had any way