THE IRRIGA TION A GE. 377 



legislation and educating the people to more domesticated lives of 

 husbandry. Every city should own and-control the canyons on which 

 their waters are carried for domestic and culinary purposes. These 

 canyons should be reforested by native, quick growing trees and 

 shrubs, and some of the hard wood trees of the limestone regions add- 

 ed for experiments. The work should be in the hands of several city 

 councils, county courts or other local or municipal officials, who might 

 appoint competent foresters for superintending the work of planting 

 and caring for the trees and shrubbery. 



There are many locations in the Rocky Mountains and the west- 

 ern spurs suitable for natural reservoir sites, if systematic forestry 

 was practiced. The small basins, shaded by quakenasp and other 

 trees were once ideal reservoirs, holding the snows and rainfall in 

 check until late in the summer months. These basins have been tap- 

 ped, the sodded banks destroyed, and the protecting undergrowth and 

 large trees eaten out by stock, burned by fires or cut away by timber 

 hunters. The old conditions must be present before those sites will 

 deliver water as in pioneer days or the beauty of the mountains can be 

 recognized as in former days. A few private reservoir sites have been 

 located, but they must be well fenced and carefully guarded to pre- 

 vent destruction by roving stock and thoughtless loggers. 



The general government has taken up the subject of protecting 

 the old forests and in some instances prohibited tha cutting of timber 

 in certain districts. This action has been severely criticised by some 

 interested parties, who pretend to believe that the forests are public 

 domains that will never be exhausted. Some prosecutions have been 

 made and those guilty of infringing upon the forbidden boundary lines 

 have been and made to pay the value of the timber cut and destroyed. 

 This measure has been fought in the courts and in Congress, but it is 

 merely the interference of our great government in behalf of her peo- 

 ple when those benefitted cannot see the^necessity for such actions. 

 The time has come when general education is needed to create public 

 sentiment in favor of systematic forestry in all the mountains of the 

 realm of irrigation. 



