Excerpts: The present timber sale policy of the Government on the National Forests is of very recent date. Its development, however, has been gradual and a logical and necessary outcome of the change in the timber conditions of the West. It forms a most interesting chapter in the history of the public land policy of this country. There have been three stages in the Government policy of dealing with the timberland on the public domain, each of which has left distinct marks on the condition of the cut-over land and on the kind of forest that such land will produce: (1) The period prior to the act of Congress of June 4,1897, which gave the Secretary of the Interior authority to sell timber from the forest reserves. (2) The period from the act of June, 1897, to the transfer of these forest reserves to the Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture on February 1, 1905. (3) The period since the transfer of these Forests to the Forest Service.
