ECONOMIC GROUNDS FOR PRESERVING THE FORESTS. 75 



In the Yellow Pine Zone a fair acreage would be 7,000 feet, board 

 measure, divided about equally between yellow pine and Douglas spruce 

 to the extent of 75 per cent, the remainder tamarack. However, as 

 before remarked, the conditions of the forests are so unequal, owing to 

 climate, etc., that no just estimate as to the total amount any particular 

 area carries can be made from a general average. 



The accessible portions of the Cu'ur d'Alene forests theoretically 

 include the whole; practically they do not. The amount that can be 

 reached will always depend upon the urgency of the demand and the 

 prices of the forest products in the particular region. There are no 

 physical difficulties in the way of gaining access to all parts which 

 can not be readily overcome; the cost is the main factor. The total of 

 the bottom lands in the valleys and canyons is probably not the one- 

 hundredth part of the superficial area of the region. 



The future of the forests of the Coeur D'Alenes can be easily pre- 

 dicted unless a successful system of adequate protection against wan- 

 ton destruction is afforded. If in the short space of thirty-five years 

 50 per cent of the accessible timber has been totally destroyed, it 

 requires no great calculation to figure out the destiny of the other half. 

 It must be recollected that only twelve or thirteen years of this period 

 have been marked by industrial development in the region. 



FOREST PRESERVATION. 



Putting aside wholly the question of sentiment and looking at the 

 matter from an economic standpoint, there is not the slightest question 

 that the forests of the Coeur d'Alenes should be preserved. 



The forest should be preserved because it is a source of lumber and 

 fuel. The greatest wealth of the Coeur d'Alenes is in its mines. To 

 exploit the mineral treasures of these mountains successfully requires 

 an adequate amount of lumber and fuel. 



When the home supply gives out it must be imported. That means 

 a very long haul, for the forests of Montana, never extensive, are fast 

 drifting toward the same condition in which the Coeur d'Alenes are 

 found. We have seen that a very long time is required before a forest 

 once destroyed will arrive at sufficient age to yield marketable logs. 

 The young growth of the Coeur d'Alenes will not reach this state, even 

 with the best of care, within the next three generations. There is all 

 the more reason, then, why that which remains of the Old and Second 

 growths should be used legitimately — that is, with all needlessly waste- 

 ful methods rigorously eliminated. 



The forest should be preserved for climatic reasons. The clearing 

 away of the forests subjects all the agricultural lands in the valleys to 

 much greater temperature variations than they previously experienced. 

 The days will be warmer, the nights colder. The increased diurnal 

 temperature is no compensation whatever for the lower nocturnal. It 

 means a freer evaporation from the soil and consequent desiccation 

 and a greater radiation into space of the heat that the earth has 

 7203— ^'o. 1 



