314 



ARBORICULTURE 



acres and the recent addition of more 

 than 800,000 acres of forest land in 

 Stevens county, Washington, is looked 

 upon by the people of the northwest as 

 exe-iiplifying the administration's dis- 

 regard for the protests of Senator Hep- 

 burn and others. 



The contention of the forestry de- 

 partment is that the trees are neces- 

 sary to conserve the water and timber 

 supply to the great mining industry in 

 the Coeur d'Alene country, since the 

 Coeur d'Alene river finds its source in 

 the wilds of northern Idaho, where the 

 Shoshone reserve has been created in 

 connection with the Coeur d'Alene res- 

 ervation, adjoining it on the north, and 

 to others to be known as the Coeur 

 d'Alene reserve. Their aggregate area 

 is 2,250,000 acres. They are in Sho- 

 shone and Kootenai counties and ex- 

 tend northward to the middle of Lake 

 Pend d'Oreille. The Lemhi reserve 

 embraces 1,346,460 acres and is in three 

 strips adjoining the Montana line, 

 while 165,240 acres of timber lands 

 have been set in the extreme north- 

 eastern part of Idaho on the British 

 Columbia and Montana lines, a small 

 segment of the reserve being in Mon- 

 tana. The Salmon river reserve in 

 Lemhi and Custer counties embrace 2,- 

 201,120 acres, the entire area between 

 Salmon river and the middle fork of 

 that stream. The Raft River reserve, 

 in Cassia and Oneida counties, em- 

 braces 291,976 acres and additions ag- 

 gregating l.o7L760 acres, have been 

 been made in Sawtooth reserve. 



Timbermen ?ay there is little foun- 

 dation for the contention that there is 

 danger of the forests being denuded at 

 the present rate of cutting. It is esti- 

 mated there is more than 700,000,000,- 

 000 feet of standing timber ir north- 

 western states and at the present rate 

 of cutting, it will take 350 years to 

 utilize the merchantable trees." 



I have personally talked with quite 

 a number of Idaho citizens recently, 

 some engaged in mining and others in 

 ranching, all of whom fully endorse 

 the Forest Reserve policy. 



I am creditably informed that the 

 opposition comes from lumber com- 

 panies who are grabbing the forests 

 and are cutting the timber which is 

 greatly needed for the future use of 

 the mines and for the protection of the 

 water supply. 



No intelligent person would for an 

 instant consider our correspondent's 

 statement of the centuries which the 

 timber of the northwest will last. 



Instead of 350 years, it will be practi- 

 cally used up in less than twenty-five 

 years. 



There are large and influential corpo- 

 rations as well as numerous individ- 

 uals who have no regard to the inter- 

 ests of others, so long as they can 

 make large sums of money from the 

 destruction of our forests. Such cor- 

 porations have for many years dom- 

 inated Congress, elected senators and 

 controlled legislatures. 



It is full time the government 

 should assert the rights of this people 

 and those who are to come after us. 



With but a trifle of America's mag- 

 nificent forests remaining, the duty of 

 Congress is to withdraw every acre of 

 timberland still held by the govern- 

 ment from public sale. 



This should be held as a sacred trust 

 to be forever retained, only removing 

 such trees as can be spared and those 

 which have exceeded their allotted 

 age, carefully reserving all young trees 

 and those which will continue to grow 

 into valuable lumber. 



To which should be added a more 

 efficient system of forest planting by 

 the government, seeding the bare spots 

 with tree- suited to the locality. 



All the interests of this nation de- 

 mand the ])erpetuation of the remain- 

 ing fore ts, a'jriculture. the mines, nav- 

 igation, commerce, the builders' trades, 

 all will re(|uire timber twenty, fifty and 

 a hundred years hence as urgently as 

 we of the present generation, and the 

 greed of the lumber operators must 

 not be permitted to devastate the for- 

 ests wh-ch are still owned by the gov- 

 ernment. 



