\ .'rom the 7orest Service, U. 3c Apartment of Agriculture.) 

 30V3KNJENT MAKES L/707GT i.G^ R3L2AS39 70R PUBLICATION 



0?73nii;o 07 TiIlBSFi UlTTIL r'AITTAKY 6, 1914. 



Washington, Jan 5. Secretary of agriculture Houston 

 today approved the disposal of one billion feet of western 

 yellow pine timber from the* Ilaibab national forest in northern 

 Arizona. In order to get this timber out it will be necessary 

 to build a railroad approximately 200 miles long. Such a rail- 

 road will connect Colorado and Utah with the world-famous Grand 

 Canyon of the Colorado, rhich hitherto ho.. s been accessible only 

 froiii the south, 



7or several years the construction of such a railroad 

 IT-.O been considered by various capitalists, but it has been 

 st-tel that the lack of assured immediate traffic v;as an effec- 

 tual barrier. It is pointed out, however, that a contract 

 for a billion feet of timber will overcome this difficulty by 

 providing a commodity for transportation which, together with 

 tourist and local traffic, will place the project on a paying 

 basis practically from the outset. 



Chief forester Henry 3. Graves made a personal examina- 

 tion on the ground, and this examination supplemented by the 

 reports of his forest engineers, induced him to recommend the 

 sale of such a large body of timber in order th^ t the country 

 might be developed through the supplying of this resource, Ilr . 

 Graves says, however, that the Kaibab forest is one of the most 

 beautiful in America, and gives assurance that the marketing 



97 P 



