PAPERS HEAD BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION. 



19 



there is a scarcity of water, ditch companies 

 should be required to only let water flow 

 when and where needed. 



Said ditch companies should be required to 

 plant and maintain a row of forest trees along 

 the line of such ditches. The State should, 

 by suitable laws, grant substantial and 

 adequate inducements to all persons 

 within the State who will plant and cultivate 

 forest and other trees. The State could 

 afford to reward such persons, because by 

 cultivating trees, they assist in maintaining 

 artificial forests, and hence become public 

 benefactors. The General Government was 

 wise in providing the Timber Culture Act 

 the only fault witn it is that it does not offer 

 sufficient inducement to those who take 

 public land under it. The person who takes 

 public land under said act, gets no more land 

 than he who takes a homestead ; and yet the 

 government asks him to expend in time, 

 labor and money, in cultivating ten acres in 

 timber trees more than $1,000 before he gets 

 a patent to said land. And yet said ten acres 

 of newly made forest, to be kept up and 

 maintained by him, by expensive irrigation 

 and cultivation, is in fact for the benefit of 

 the general public. The law should be so 

 amended as to set apart a certain portion of 

 the public domain that can be irrigated 

 to be planted and cultivated in forest and 

 other trees, at the public expense T.hen the 

 whole country would be benefited. The at- 

 tempt by Congress last session to repeal the 

 timber culture act was uuwise, to say the 

 least. The General Government has ex- 

 pended large sums of money in sinking ar- 

 tesian wells, to no purpose. Now let it enact 

 wise and liberal laws which will protect and 

 preserve the forests of the Rocky Mountain 

 range and thus maintain the present water 

 supply for the arid plains. This matter 

 should be urged upon our representatives in 

 Congress. 



A WOMAN'S VIEWS OP FOR- 

 ESTRY. 



BY MKS. A. L. WASHBURNE OF LOVELAND. 



I regret exceedingly that circumstances 

 over which I have no control (a polite name 

 for "hard times") prevents my attendance at 

 this your first convention. I hope to be 

 present at your first annual meeting in 1885. 

 for I foresee a great work before you, and one 

 which calls for a permanent organization. 



There is certainly "cause for action." Al- 

 ready our mountain sides present a bare and 

 uninviting appearance compared to the dark 

 wooded slopes of twenty years ago; and 

 destruction of their beauty has, as is almost 



always the case, kept pace with that of their 

 utility. The beautiful nines which once 

 formed for the eye of the lonely emigrant 

 and settler so agreeable a contrast to the 

 gigantic rocks which lifted their seamed and 

 scarred surfaces to the sunlight have been 

 mostly destroyed by fires wantonly set or 

 carelessly neglected. 



The use of the house-logs and fencing of 

 the scattered settlers are but as a drop in the 

 bucket to the loss by fire. But lamentations 

 are vain; the question now is how best to re- 

 pair the damage of the past and to replace 

 our beautiful and useful forests. While to 

 many minds this question will pre- 

 sent itself in a purely finan- 

 cial light, involving the loss and 

 the replacement of millions of dollars' 

 worth of lumber, cordwood, ties, fencing and 

 charcoal, to me there is also a moral aspect 

 to be considered, reminding us of the Golden 

 Rule, and the perpetual obligations of moral 

 beings to work for the "greatest goo to the 

 greatest number." The higher law, which 

 keeps each within the sphere of his own per- 

 sonal rights and teaches us to as carefally 

 abstain from infringing on those of others, 

 must be applied in daily practice to the tim- 

 ber question, and would do much to put an 

 end to the terrible conflagrations which have 

 denuded our hillsides of their verdure, for 

 even a mountain fire of six weeks' duration, 

 extending over many miles of forest, began 

 somewhere in a tiny flame which might 

 in most cases have been extinguished in a 

 moment if the unselfish will were present. 

 The love of trees and the intimate know edge 

 of their individual characteristics should be 

 taught to the young. There is no study of 

 nature more enchanting. It is a study which 

 lures one on and on after the attention is 

 once directed to it. I have seen a class 

 charmed and interested while a teacher spoke 

 of the different trees in their school yard 

 their habits of growth, their smooth, shiny 

 leaves or those beautifully notched or scal- 

 loped, all so similar that each tree was recog- 

 nized at a glance, and yet so diverse that of 

 the thousands or millions of leaves on one 

 tree, no two were alike. 



And from their own trees to those in their 

 neighbor's yards, from the hill to the river 

 bank, from the plain to the mountain, each 

 native tree fitted to its own location, and 

 each one of foreign origin adapting itself, as 

 best it may, to its new surrounding. An oc- 

 casional question brings forth surprising re- 

 plies from the children, some of the bright 

 ones showing unusual powers of observation 

 and original thought. From their appear- 

 ance, natural situation and habits, children 

 are easily led to consider, the uses of trees, 



