Of course, where mining companies, organized solely to obtain vast areas of timber land, under cover of the mining laws, especially the Timber and Stone Act, and the Placer Mining laws, found their work exposed by the activity and watchfulness of the forest officers, they naturally raised a cry against the Service that woke the echoes. The Placer laws allow a company to obtain title to twenty acres of land simply by showing five hundred dollars' worth of mining work done upon it. No signs of mineral need be shown, no further attempt to develop it is required. Prove that five hundred dollars' worth of work has been done, and the patent is issued. The takers are not limited to a single tract, but can have just as many tracts as they have sums of five hundred dollars to invest. Under this Placer law whole townships, covered with the finest timber on the Pacific coast, were taken up solely to obtain title to the land for the timber upon it. Wherever the final patents had not been issued on these lands, the Forest Service stepped in and put a stop to it, thus saving thousands of acres of timber land for the people. Small wonder that these licensed pirates look upon a forest ranger as the embodiment of all that is bad, and the forest policy as an encroachment upon sacred vested rights! _The Case of the Wood Haulers_ And the poor wood haulers! How they complained because they thought their divine right to cut and slash as they chose was to be invaded! What happened to them? To-day they are better off than ever. True, they pay a little for the wood--from as low as ten cents a cord in some forests up to fifty cents in others. But what do they get in return for it? If a wood hauler wants to buy ten cords of wood or any amount up to fifty dollars' worth, he simply goes to the nearest ranger, and in ten minutes the deal is over; the ranger accompanies him to the area where he wishes to cut and shows him by marks and bounds just where he may cut; the trees are marked, and the man sets to work knowing full well that no one else will invade this little tract or steal his wood when it is cut and piled up waiting for him to haul it away, as was the case over and over again in the old days of free and unlimited competition. _How the Government Sells Timber_ What of the next class, the sawmill men? Every stick of matured, merchantable timber in the forests, not needed for protection of water-sheds, is for sale. By matured timber is meant a tree that has reached its maximum growth and development, and is beginning slowly to deteriorate, and should, like any ripe crop, be harvested. There is no limit either high or low. In New Mexico one contract for 1907 called for 50,000 feet and another for 10,000,000, and each was made and carried out under the same conditions; little man and big both got the same square deal.