FOREST RESERVES IN IDAHO. " 58 



includes the town of Warren, a settlement since 1862, around and about which 

 are some of the best mines in the State of Idaho. This reserve has evidently 

 been selected without any personal knowledge on the part of the selector of the 

 conditions upon the ground in this section. It covers a considerable portion of 

 the State wagon road, constructed by the State to enable settlers to get into 

 this very country. This reserve cuts off the Thunder Mountain mining country 

 from the north by a barrier which amounts to a prohibition against those who 

 desire to operate these mines from that direction, and they are easier of access 

 from the north than from anywhere else. The reservation covers a large amount 

 of the mining country now being taken up and settled about and adjacent to the 

 Thunder :Mountain district. To withdraw it is to paralyze the rapid growth 

 now going on in that section of the country. 



The map furnished me does not indicate the fact with certainty, but I believe 

 the proposed reserve covers the Thunder Mountain mining district and the town 

 of Roosevelt, which is one of the most rapidly growing and prosperous new 

 places in Idaho. There are several thousand people in that section of the State 

 who went there with the intention of staying, provided they could have the 

 rights of settlers in other sections of the country without being " supervised." 



Again my colleague throws facts to the wind. In reading the 

 official objections of my colleague to these proposed forest reserves, I 

 fear that he has been thinking of "jack-o'-lanterns" so much that 

 he constantly uses them through force of habit. 



Every portion of this reserve has been traversed and carefully 

 studied by the most competent examiners of the Forestry Bureau. 

 The timber has been mapped and photographed, and the only com- 

 plete and reliable map of this entire section in existence has been 

 prepared and will be published by the Forestry Bureau. This 

 detailed map shows that 50 per cent of the area is covered with com- 

 mercial timber, 3^ per cent is woodland, and 13 per cent is burned 

 and cut-over forest land, which will restock, yet my colleague asserts 

 it as a " fact " that it includes vast quantities of land upon Avhich 

 there is no timber. 



It will not interfere at all with the State wagon road, but will be 

 a protection to it. 



The Thunder Mountain district and the town of Roosevelt are 20 

 miles in an air line from the proposed reserA^e, and its residents are 

 not and can not be affected in any way. 



The mining supply station of Warren is the only settlement within 

 the proposed reserve. It is a supply point and freight station, and 

 nothing but the possible development of minerals Avill ever make any 

 towns, or even scattered population, of any importance within the 

 area. 



PROPOSED ADDITIOX TO THE BITTER ROOT FOREST RESERVE. 



I haA-e already stated that something OA'er 1,300,000 acres of the 

 3,000,000 acres Avhich Avas AvithdraAvn from entry in 1902 on the rec- 

 ommendation of the Reclamation SerA^ce, to be included in the Bitter 

 Root Forest ReserA^e, has noAv been set aside for the proposed Payette 

 Forest Reserve. Xorth of the Salmon RiA^er it is proposed to add to 

 the Bitter Root Forest ReserA^e a tract of 452,357 acres, Avhich is 

 nearly all Avithin the AvithdraAval mentioned. 



The present boundaries of the Bitter Root ReserA^e include but a 

 small part of the timbered region betAveen the Salmon RiA^er and the 

 south fork of the Clearwater. All of this proposed addition, excepting 

 about 20 per cent, possesses suitable climate for the growth of com- 

 mercial timber. It is entirely unsuited for agriculture. One-half of 



