orests.

I venture the prediction that the sheep industry on naturally semi-arid
lands is doomed; that the future feeding of both sheep and cattle will
be on irrigated lands, and that the forests will be carefully guarded by
State and Nature as natural reservoirs.

COMMERCIALISM AND IDEALISM.

By contrast to the sheep question, which is a purely economic or
utilitarian one, and will settle itself, if we do not settle it by
legislation based on scientific observation, the preservation of the
Sequoia and of our large wild animals is one of pure sentiment, of
appreciation of the ideal side of life; we can live and make money
without either. We cannot even use the argument which has been so
forcibly used in the case of the birds, that the cutting down of these
trees or killing of these animals will upset the balance of nature.

I believe in every part of the country--East, West, North, and South--we
Americans have reached a stage of civilization where if the matter were
at issue the majority vote would unquestionably be, _let us preserve
our wild animals._

We are generally considered a commercial people, and so we are; but we
are more than this, we are a people of ideas, and we value them. As
stated in the preamble of the Sequoia bill introduced on Dec. 8, 1903,
we must legislate for the benefit and enjoyment of the people, and I may
add for the greatest happiness of the largest number, not only of the
present but of future generations.

So far as my observation goes, preservation can only be absolutely
insured by national legislation.

GOVERNMENT LEGISLATION BY ENGLAND, BELGIUM, GERMANY.

The English, a naturally law-abiding people, seem to have a special
faculty for enforcing laws. By co-operation with the Belgian Government
they have taken effective and remarkably successful measures for the
protection of African game. As for Germany, in 1896 Mr. Gosselin, of
the British Embassy in Berlin, reported as follows for German East Africa:

That the question of preserving big game in German East Africa has been
under the consideration of the local authorities for some time past, and
a regulation has been notified at Dar-es-Salaam which it is hoped will
do something toward checking the wanton destruction of elephants and
other indigenous animals. Under this regulation every hunter must take
out an animal license, for which the fee varies from 5 to 500 rupees,
the former being the ordinary fee for natives, the latter f