THE GUARDIAN OF OUR FORESTS 



BY ALICE SPENCER COOK 



(.(, 



U' 



NCLE Sam's handy man" is what we call the 

 forest ranger, the man who guards our National 

 Forests, for his duties are probably more varied 

 than any other officer in the Government Service. His 

 life and activities are much of a mystery to the average 

 citizen. Even in the western States where the National 

 Forests are 

 largely lo- 

 cated, little is 

 known of the 

 men who pro- 

 tect the timber 

 resources o f 

 the State, 

 watch over the 

 water courses 

 and the game 

 and stock, and 

 patrol in gen- 

 eral the great 

 mountain 

 reaches. 



When t h e 

 Service was 

 new, the only 

 qua lifications 

 demanded of 

 him were those 

 of a woods- 

 man or a cow- 

 boy. "Book 

 learning" was 

 unessential, so 

 long as he 

 could swing an 

 ax and ride a 

 horse. He 

 blazed the trail 

 through untrod 

 forests and 

 over unnamed 

 peaks, but he 

 was not up on 

 the "technical" 

 stuff and, with 

 the buffalo and 

 bison, the pio- 

 neer and his 

 prairie schooner, he had to go. The advancing strides of 

 civilization demanded a scientific knowledge of the 

 woods and engineering ability and forest schools soon 

 turned out the requisite number of these college trained 

 men, whose education in the theory of the management 

 of the forest, supplemented by practical experience in 



Photograph by H. T. Cowling 



JIERE IS FOUND RE.\LIZATION 



Easy of access, what could be more soul-satisfying to 

 at evening? Lake Chelan is in the Chelan 



various lines of woods work, made them capable of per- 

 forming their varied duties. 



So the ranger has gradually developed from the un- 

 educated, though faithful, frontiersman, to the clear- 

 eyed, weather-bronzed young fellow with a vast amount 

 of initiative and tact, a combination of cattleman, sur- 

 veyor, timber 

 cruiser, fire ex- 

 pert, telephone 

 linesman, and, 

 most of all, a 

 first-class 

 woodsman. 



The little . 

 o 1 d weather 

 beaten shack 

 has given way 

 to a substan- 

 tial cabin, fur- 

 nished by the 

 Gove rnment, 

 and costing 

 about $1,000, 

 which is situ- 

 ated near the 

 largest town in 

 h i s district. 

 These cabins, 

 which are in- 

 variably paint- 

 ed green and 

 have "Old 

 Glory" floating 

 above them, 

 are very at- 

 tractive look- 

 ing. In addi- 

 tion to a rent- 

 free cabin, the 

 ranger is fur- 

 nished with all 

 the fuel he re- 

 quires, so he 

 is never har- 

 assed with the 

 coal bills 

 which bring 

 furrows of care 

 to the brow of many a city dweller. He must, how- 

 ever, furnish his own horse, and a horse to a ranger 

 is as necessary as a ship to a sailor; but pasture is fur- 

 nished by the Government. 



Each ranger has charge of about 200,000 acres, and 

 is assisted by guards, who belong to the old school 



the lover of beauty than this view of Lake Chelan 

 National Forest, guarded by our rangers. 



1329 



