NATIONAL FOREST PLANTATION UPON PIKES PEAK 



BY SMITH RILEY, DISTRICT FORESTER, DENVER, COLORADO 



YOU have heard the story of the man who saw a 

 little child clapping her hands and jumping with 

 joy near a small tree. The man called the mother's 

 attention to the child's happiness, whereupon the mother 

 said : "She may well be happy because it is the first tree 

 she has ever seen." 



Imagine your world without trees. Think of those 

 areas in which you delight without trees. Or better still, 

 think of those mountain areas with which you are familiar 

 where fires have completely killed all forest growth. The 

 thousands of people who visit Estes Park in Colorado 



idle is said to be sixty-five million dollars. No large sums 

 have been made available by Congress to reforest the 

 denuded lands within the National Forests, so that the 

 acreage planted each year has been extremely nominal 

 and the work is of an experimental character. 



In picking the areas in the National Forests where 

 planting is to be carried on, extremes of conditions have 

 been sought so that this early, restricted reforestation 

 would in the years to come serve to point the way in 

 carrying out more extensive operations. One of the 

 areas chosen lies upon the slopes of Pikes Peak in Colo- 





PLANTING IN ROCKY COUNTRY 



Denuded country near Pikes Peak Auto Highway planted with yellow pine in 1912. This picture shows the rough character of a greater part of 



this country. Old snags of the former timber stand among the rocks. 



each year are familiar with the extensive burns upon the 

 east slope of Long's Peak. Can anything be more ghastly 

 than the path of one of these consuming fires ? It is the 

 wiping out of all life which impresses one. It is like 

 the battlefields of France. Passing through one of these 

 burned areas is depressing in the extreme to many people 

 who see upon all sides the skeletons of once superb tree 

 life bleached white by the action of winter storms. 



It is estimated that out of the 160 million odd acres of 

 National Forests there are seven and a half million acres 

 in need of planting or seeding to re-establish tree growth. 

 The yearly loss to the nation in forest products from 

 lands suited only for the production of timber and now 



rado and includes the fire denuded portions of those 

 watersheds from which several towns, including Colorado 

 Springs and Manitou, secure municipal water. A recon- 

 naissance study has shown there are some twelve or four- 

 teen thousand acres from which the forest growth was 

 swept by fire in the early days before the growing demand 

 for water brought realization of the high value of tree 

 growth as a water conserver. In addition to the forest 

 products which can be produced from the lands and the 

 value of the tree growth as a water conserver, there is 

 the high value of establishing trees eventually to heal 

 the ghastly fire scars upon the mountain slope, as Colo- 

 rado Springs and Manitou, two cities closely related to 



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