Transcription:
EDITORIAL-DEPARTMENT THE CENTURY-MAGAZINES UNION SQUARE NEW YORK January 9th, 1896 R. W. GILDER, EDITOR R. U. JOHNSON,
ASSOCIATE EDITOR. C. C. BUEL, ASSISTANT EDITOR. John Muir, Esq. Martinez, Cal. My dear Muir:- This is the third
week of a tussle with a carbuncle.Most of the time I have been confined to my house, though I have not been wholly invalidated
for work; but I want you to know that if it had not been for this I should have written to you to wish Mrs. Muir and you the
compliments of the season, and to tell you that I am keeping an eye on the Public Lands Committee at Washington. Did I tell
you that we are to have a national forestry commission by a short cut? It will not be necessary to have a bill, but Secretary
Hoke Smith will ask the National Academy of Science to undertake the investigation, and it becomes its duty to do so in accordance
with its constitution, and all Congress will have to do will be to foot the bill by appropriation. By that time, if anybody
wants to fight the appropriation we shall have a tussle. Meantime, all the friends of forestry will concentrate themselves
in support of the McRae Bill. McRae is still on the Public Lands Committee of the House, whose chairman is Mr. Lacey of Iowa.
Bowers has got himself appointed to this