has spoken with greater authority on this subject, estimated that
in the upland regions of the States South of Pennsylvania, three
thousand square 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