. AGEICULTURAL LANDS. 27 



swamps. They are embraced within the limits of the Oceur d'Alene 

 Indian Reservation, and are therefore not under settlement. A contin- 

 uation of these open bottom lands extends to the head of navigation of 

 the stream, and the space is quite generally occupied by settlers. Above 

 the head of navigation are small patches of meadow, alternating with 

 heavily timbered areas and wet cedar swamps, where settlements soon 

 cease. The whole slack-water part of the St. Joseph valley is liable to 

 extensive overflows each spring, occasioned by the filling of Lake Oceur 

 d'Alene and the consequent bucking up of the water over its ancient 

 bottom. Part of it is always swampy and too low to be drained and 

 therefore unfit for agriculture. Several small lakes are found in this 

 part of the valley. The overflows from which the valley suffers more or 

 less each year are said to have become a great deal worse since a dam 

 was put in at Post Falls to improve the water power at that place. 



Around the shores of Lake Comr d'Alene is a narrow more or less 

 interrupted series of benches. They are heavily timbered, and would 

 in any case afford but small agricultural areas. For a distance of nearly 

 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) eastward from the north end of the lake is a 

 rolling country, covered principally with the yellow pine {Firms ponde- 

 row). There are a number of farms scattered over this area, and, with 

 the exception of the Wolf Lodge Creek bottoms and a small space at 

 the outlet of Blue Creek into Lake Cceur d'Alene, the tillable land 

 which they possess has been made by clearing off the forests. The 

 valleys of the main Cceur d'Alene Kiver and that of one of its branches, 

 the South Fork, are the principal centers of population of the region 

 and possess the largest area of agricultural lands. Greater efforts 

 have been made here than elsewhere to transform the forest -covered 

 valleys and benches into arable land. 



This is due to the near and ready market afforded by the various 

 mining camps for farm produce and the enhanced value of agricultural 

 lands in consequence. The valley varies in width from 2.1 to 0.5 kilo- 

 meters (1.3 to 0.3 miles), and settlements and cultivated areas extend 

 throughout its whole length to a point within 10 kilometers (G.2 miles) 

 of the main range of the Bitter Boots at Sohons Pass. The amount of 

 bench lands along this valley is quite limited. The largest quantity of 

 agricultural land in one body is adjacent to the old Cceur d'Alene Mis- 

 sion. There are here about 3,000 acres of good arable bottom lands, 

 nearly clear and unbroken by mountain spurs, but wet ami springy in 

 places. 



The valley of the North Fork has the least available agricultural 

 land of any portion of the C(eur d'Alene region. The forest is in 

 general so dense that the life of one generation is too short to hew out 

 a farm of sufficient size to furnish support to even a small family. Here, 

 as elsewhere, scattered pieces of meadow land occur and areas where 

 some forest fire of more than ordinary fierceness has in a measure 

 cleared the land. 



7203— No. 1 3 



