12 



THE HilUdATIOX AGE. 



Forest preservation would imply that 

 a protection forest could not at the 

 same time be used as a supply forest; in 

 other words that to secure the protection 

 which the forest cover offers to soil and 

 water conditions we must abstain from 

 using 1 the material grown in the forest. 



This is by no means necessary, but the 

 use of that material must be subordi- 

 nate to the protective function expected 

 from the forest cover and the utilization 

 must be carried on with care so as to 

 secure reproduction, not in the style of 

 the lumberman, who simply takes the 

 cream and leaves the rest to fire and 

 destruction, not caring for the condition 

 and its future. 



The president of the United States 

 has the right of law to set aside from 



the public domain, forest reservations 

 for the purpose of securing favorable 

 conditions at the headwaters of streams. 

 In spite of strenuous opposition by lum- 

 bermen, sheep-herders and miners, some 

 17,000,000 acres have been so reserved. 

 But in the absence of proper means of 

 administrating these it has seemed best 

 not to increase this reserve until legis- 

 lation is secured which will enable the 

 proper protection and use of the same. 



II the irrigationists conceive their in- 

 terests on broad lines, they will insist 

 upon the passage of such legislation 

 and an extension of the policy of forest 

 reservations to include all such forest 

 areas as are situated at the headwaters 

 and along water courses, which may 

 become means of irrigation. 



NONTANA AS AN OBJECT LESSON 



BY GEORGE H. SCOTT. 



Traveling Staff Correspondent Rocky Mountain Husbandman. 

 White Sulphur Springs, Montana. 



" I V HE development of arid lands to the 

 stage to which their resources and 

 the needs of future generations should 

 ultimately carry their progress, will em- 

 brace the solution of many interesting 

 problems, and witness the unfolding of 

 far-reaching effects. Among the many 

 and important engineering problems 

 will be the diversion of great streams, 

 the recovery of vast quantities of preatic 

 water, the construction of myriads of 

 canals, lakes, dams, aqueducts, tunnels 

 and reservoirs. And before the happy 

 consummation of this period there will 

 surely be the most significant questions 

 to be answered as to the most economical 

 and effective application of the power to 

 be used, which will be wind, steam, water 

 and electricity, especially the last. 



Let the careful observer for just a few 

 moments, contemplate what all this 

 would signify and mean to this and com- 

 ing generations if the whole region de- 

 nominated the Great Plains, could be 

 completely submerged by systems of 

 water supply sufficient for their reason- 

 able and thorough irrigation. Such an 



elevated degree of development of agri- 

 culture and horticulture as it would cer- 

 tainly bring about and then an increased 

 urban and manufacturing class of people 

 as never was before known since the 

 creation, would follow. It would estab- 

 lish a new era in the progress of all 

 lines of industrial improvements. The 

 progress along all lines, the wealth, the 

 added comforts, the superior educational 

 opportunities, social and economic ad- 

 vantages arising from such density of 

 population may very easily be imagined 

 without the aid of the Roentgen rays 

 being thrown upon the new movements 

 of common humanity. The readiness 

 and ease of transportation by public 

 highways, by rail, and by artificial water- 

 ways; their great productiveness, their 

 inland situation, their health fulness; 

 their safety from foreign invasion, from 

 floods and from tornadoes, woud render 

 them at once the chosen homelof those 

 who seek health and security, and make 

 them the granary and the citadel of the 

 continent. 



Since the principal support of human- 



