SECTIONS OF TREES SHOWING HOW THE BEAVER DOES HIS CUTTING 



The beaver is a true conservationist, because the trees that he cuts up to store away for a winter food supply are of only small or mediurn size, 

 and are of a species that have little value to man. As a lumberman, tie is admirable; for he prevents forest tires, he leaves no high 

 stumps, and he manages his tract so that tiie next beaver colony finds more timber and better conditions than did the first one. 



Protection of Beaver in Wisconsin 



By F. B. Moody 

 Of the State Conservation Commission of JVisconsin 



THE beaver, one of the most wonderful creatures in 

 the animal kingdom, who was the pioneer kmiber- 

 man, engineer and architect on this continent, has 

 entered upon a new industry. He is now trying to regu- 

 late and manage a railway in Wisconsin. An official of the 

 Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad has had to 

 apply to the State Conservation Commission for relief 

 from an artificial lake that a colony of beaver has created 

 upon the main tracks of the railroad between Harshaw 

 and Goodnow by damning Bearskin Creek. 



The beaver might even be considered a shrewd lawyer, 

 for, although he is interfering with the passage of the 

 United States mails and delaying interstate traf^c, he 

 seems to know that he is secure in his person from at- 

 tack or arrest, just like a member of a legislature during 

 a session, and he calmly proceeds, without the shadow of 

 a franchise, to build and maintain a dam, and also to 

 walk, loiter and be upon and along a sacred railroad 

 right of way. 



It is perfectly evident that the beaver will have to get 

 into politics soon, and will probably need to be repre- 

 sented in the Wisconsin Legislature. It is not known 

 just what his political affiliations will be. The railroad 

 interests find it difficult to decide whether the beaver is 

 more of an ultra-progressive or a standpatter. Although 

 he works a good deal in the dark, some consider his 



220 



methods decidedly Rooseveltian ; and, again, he seems to 

 be a staunch upholder of the Wilson policy of pre- 

 paredness. 



Possibly the beaver knew that the United States Gov- 

 ernment reserved the flowage rights on many of the 

 Ciovernment lands that were sold ; or possibly they re- 

 sented the fact that, although they were there first, the 

 railroad corporation, without consulting the community 

 at all or securing any authorization, laid its ties and rails 

 right where the beavers' city planning commission had 

 always intended to erect an elegant four-story swimming 

 hole. At any rate, a great clashing of two public inter- 

 ests is innninent, and, so far, the hero of Cameron Dam 

 has nothing on the beaver. 



The wonderful knowledge and industry and persever- 

 ance of the beaver have won the enduring interest and 

 admiration of man. As an engineer, he so wisely selects 

 a narrowed place in a stream for his dam, a site with 

 good banks. If the stream channel is very wide, he 

 accepts the inevitable and curves his dam upstream 

 against the current. Then the wonderful, patient labor 

 of cutting his logs, getting them down stream and plac- 

 ing them, of swimming again and again, with his little 

 load of mud or stone clasped to his body with forefeet, 

 to chink in the <Iam. He is mason as well as engineer 

 and builder, and even a landscape architect ; for he 



