FOREST RESERVES IN IDAHO. 21 



Senator Heybiirn offers, among others, an affidavit from Manager 

 Koberts, of the Federal Mining and Smelting Company, to show that 

 miners do not want a reserve. That this is not necessarily a repre 

 sentative opinion may be seen from the following quotations from 

 Mr. E. H. Moffit, manager of the Hecla Mining Company, one of the 

 largest in the district, concerning the proposed reserve : 



'I think it a good proposition to regulate the water flow, and I thinli it would 

 be a great benefit to mining operations in this particular section, provided some- 

 arrangement could be made whereby the mines could get lumber and stulls. 

 * * * If forest reserves could be established in mining sections and permits 

 given to cut lumber and stulls for mining purposes only, it would be a grand 

 thing. 



The forest-reserve policy is precisely that which Mr. Moffit rec- 

 ommends, and provision is already made in accordance with it. 



Mr. W. Clayton Miller, assistant general manager of the Federal 

 Mining and Smelting Company, although not a friend of reserves, 

 writes an officer of the Bureau of Forestry that — 



After the spring floods, which occur in April and June, extreme low water 

 obtains in August and September. During this time the total water available 

 at Burke and Mullan is hardly sufficient for washing purposes for a 600-ton 

 concentrating plant, and not enough to prevent accumulation of tailings in the 

 stream. * * * -jn^^ foothills of the Bitter Root at the head of Canyon 

 Creek are almost bare and very rocky. The head of South Fork, however, is 

 well timbered, and considerable soil covers the rocks, so that the water is to 

 some extent reservoired by nature. 



This statement does not agree with the statements of Senator Hey- 

 burn and Mr. Roberts that water preservation is not an object in 

 the Coeur d'Alene region. 



Of the proposed Lake Henry or Henrys Fork Reserve, Senator 

 Hey burn says that it might serve a useful purpose if confined to 

 limits which will not include lands suitable for settlement. This is 

 precisely the case as the lines now stand. 



SEVEX DEVILS (wEISER). 



Attention is directed particularly to the Little Salmon or Seven 

 Devils area, chiefly in Washington County, which is known in this 

 Department as the Seven Devils division of the proposed Weiser 

 Forest Reserve. Senator Hey burn asserts that this covers " one of 

 the most valuable mining regions in Idaho, and in addition thereto 

 many valleys most desirable for settlement, convenient to a railroad," 

 and that " the railroad, Avhich is under construction from Weiser, in 

 Washington County, north to connect with the railroad coming down 

 from the north at Harpster, in Idaho County, is closed in on either 

 side by these reserves in such a way as to practically tie up the coun- 

 try on which this railroad must depend for its resources, and if the 

 creation of these forest reserves is completed, the railroad will doubt- 

 less stop where it is. It can not afford to build through a country 

 that is included within forest-reserve restrictions." 



It is true that this area includes some territory in which encour- 

 aging mineral prospects exist. Since their develoj^ment is not inter- 

 fered with, that is an argument for preserving the limited timber 

 supply for their use and not for leaving it free for export over the 

 projected railroad. But, although Senator Heyburn asserts that all 

 of this is '^ recognized and determined mineral lands where prospect- 



