1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



2 7 



Of this vast forest thirty-one per cent, had 

 been destroyed by fire. 



This is ominous in view of the fact that 

 this stretch of country, prior to this survey, 

 was practically unexplored ; none of its 

 timber, relatively, had been put to any 

 useful purpose; and with the exception of 

 Elk City Shoupe mining camps not thirty 

 persons live within its confines. In many 

 other districts the forest fires are started 

 by sheep men, who want less forest and 

 more pasture, but here the destruction 

 comes certainly from the mining prospec- 

 tors, who set the forest on in order to ex- 

 pose the rocks to view. Near a new gold 

 find in the northwestern part of the reserve 

 as many as twenty incipient fires were 

 counted from one peak, August 10, 1897. 

 Some of the fires were visited and showed 

 plainly that they had been started pur- 

 posely. In the basin of the Coeur d'Alene, 

 which adjoins this reserve on the north, and 

 which has been partly developed from a 

 mining standpoint, one-half of the original 

 forest has been destroyed in this manner. 



In the basin of the Bitter Root River the 

 destroying agent has been the sawmills. 

 The reckless liberality of the timber laws 

 is only exceeded by the laxity, if not 

 rascality, in the enforcement of their regu- 

 lations. Such generosity has probably 

 been equalled only by the last Mexican 

 Governor, of California, who, during the 

 last few days of his administration, en- 

 deavored to grant away the better portion 

 of the State to his own countrymen before 

 the transfer of power was made. 



In Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Ari- 

 zona, Montana, Idaho and North and 

 South Dakota, individuals or corporations 

 are permitted to cut timber for building, 

 agricultural, mining and other domestic 

 use from all mineral lands, the only re- 

 straint being that timber under eight inches 

 in diameter must not be cut nor can the 

 timber be shipped from the state. A sub- 

 sequent act authorizes the Secretary of the 

 Interior to give without compensation to 

 the government the right to cut timber on 

 non-mineral lands under regulation from 

 the Interior Department. The timber and 

 stone acts and the right of way grants 

 have all served in the same general way 



to destroy our forests. The following 

 quotation is taken from a report of the 

 Forestry Commission selected by the Na- 

 tional Academy of Sciences : 



" Individual avarice and corporate greed 

 have vied in accepting this bounty offered 

 by the Government and the most valuable 

 timber accessible to the railroads has been 

 cut from all reputed mineral lands." 



Until within the past ten years game was 

 extremely plentiful in this reserve. Moose, 

 elk, bear and deer abounded. During the 

 summer could be seen bands of from twelve 

 to twenty elk, which congregated into much 

 larger herds during the winter months in 

 the canons. Moose and bear could be 

 found on every stream. In 1886, one trap- 

 per at Missoula, Montana, sought contracts 

 to deliver two hundred bear skins in one 

 season. W. E. Carlin, of New York, an 

 enthusiastic sportsman, who has known this 

 forest for a number of years, testifies to the 

 abundance of game in the past. W. H. 

 Wright, of Spokane, sportsman and guide, 

 took in a hunting party that killed six bear 

 in one day in 1890. Both these gentlemen 

 are emphatic in their statements that game 

 was very abundant but that it is fast disap- 

 pearing. In the reconnaissance trip of 876 

 miles made through these woods the writer 

 saw but one elk and two deer. No time 

 was taken for hunting, however. During 

 this journey but three hunting parties were 

 met one a Nez Perces' Indian camp, Mr. 

 Carlin's party and an outfit from Elk City, 

 Idaho. 



As this forest covers nearly six thousand 

 square miles within the reserve alone and 

 many more square miles of adjoining 

 mountains it is evident that the game has 

 not been exterminated by pleasure or food- 

 hunting parties. The guilty one in this 

 destruction is the fur trapper. He re- 

 ceives from $2. 50 for a martin skin to $35 

 for a prime bearskin. All the traps have 

 to be baited with fresh meat. Every large 

 creek visited had a trapper on it and each 

 trapper had a run or circuit of traps of 

 about 100 miles. On Moose and Bear 

 Creeks, in Idaho, during the season of 

 1896-97, one hundred and twenty bear 

 were caught by two trappers. The trap- 

 per kills his bait in the winter and then 



