Still Hearing

The Senate Public Lands Committee searching for grievances inflicted on the people in the administration of U. S. public lands in the West (TIME, Sept. 14) continued its hearings at Klamath Falls (Ore.), at Portland, at Pendleton, at Baker.

It was told: 1) that the pine beetle was destroying $15,000,000 of timber annually, while the Government had only five poorly paid entomologists combating the pest; 2) that the Government has failed to make proper provision for leasing its grazing areas to cattlemen who are being ruined by high fees, and uncertain tenure of land; 3) that owners of small tracts of land inclosed in or near Government forest reserves are being squeezed out by large timber interests that lease the Government reserves; 4) that Secretary of the Interior Work was antagonistic to the development of the irrigation projects, etc., etc., etc., etc.