1900. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



189 



at first sight less may after all be much 

 greater. For it may mean that as no trees 

 are old enough to leave seeds behind them, 

 the possibility of future growth is indifi- 

 nitely postponed. Of the Battlement Mesa 

 reserve Mr. Sudworth says (page 236) : 



"This danger is a constant menace to the 

 thousands of seedling conifers which have slowly 

 crept across so many blackened wastes. Their 

 inflammable crowns are all within reach of even 

 the lightest blaze that may run through the 

 abundant grass of the region. If fire should en- 

 ter, every vestige of promising forests would be 

 swept from thousands of acres. The scanty re- 

 forestation which the last twenty or more years 

 have effected in these regions could not be re- 

 produced in fifty years. Each successive burn- 

 ing removes the elements of a possible return 

 of original species by at least a score of years. 

 The limit at which safe recovery can be ex- 

 pected from destruction by forest fires has been 

 reached in this region. Greater inroads upon 

 these depleted forests are sure to bring far- 

 reaching effects to the vitally connected agri- 

 cultural interests of this vast territory." 



In another place (page 147) the way in 

 which the ground fires burn, and the simi- 

 larity in character between the second rate 

 hunter and the ordinary herder are both 

 shown in a paragraph of Mr. Sudworth's 

 report : 



" In September a small fire, covering about 

 one-fourth of an acre, was discovered by me on 

 the north bank of the South Fork of White 

 River, about twenty miles above its mouth. 

 The river bank is 5 or 6 feet above the water at 

 this point and the timber very dense, with a deep, 

 dry humus and many buried, dry, half-decayed 

 logs. A deep, almost smokeless, fire had felled 

 a number of big green spruces by slowly burn- 

 ing off the roots, the fire being fed by the mass 

 of inflammable matter in contact. Such fires 

 are flameless. They are buried 12 to 16 inches 

 below the tangled, mat-like surface cover of 

 green plant roots. Here they eat into the 

 punky buried wood and powdery humus in a 

 line of living coals a foot deep and as broad. 

 The heat is intense, soon converting big green 

 roots into charcoal, which serves to feed the de- 

 structive advance of such fires. Several hours' 

 digging exposed the fire, which was finally ex- 

 tinguished with many hatfuls of river water. It 

 proved to be a neglected, long-smoldering camp 

 fire, for besides the usual signs of a camp fire 

 the perpetrators had, on leaving, obligingly left 

 a record nailed to a tree, which is illustrative of 

 their law-observing spirit in respect to game and 

 fish : 



'July 25, 1898. This is to sertifie that we leve 

 this mornin' with a lode of fish and dear meet. 

 Joel Barnes & Chas. Baird.' 



It is lawful to kill deer in Colorado only from 

 September i to October 15. Fisherman are al- 

 lowed to carry off not more than 20 pounds of 

 trout, the only fish in the region." 



Fires of this kind result in the end in the 

 ' parks ' and tracts of Aspen and scrubby 

 brush with which some of the reserves are 

 now filled, and which are being seeded 

 down to timber much less rapidly than the 

 remaining groves are being burnt off. 

 The waste and loss involved are clearly 

 shown by Mr. Gannett who says of the 

 above mentioned reserve in his introduc- 

 tion (page 7) " The timber upon this re- 

 serve is of exceedingly poor quality. The 

 stand is everywhere very light, the trees are 

 small, branched low down and knotty, and 

 a considerable proportion, 25 % 1040 %, 

 including all the largest timber, is dead or 

 defective." Of the South Platte reserve he 

 remarks, " Through fires and timber cut- 

 ting nearly all the timber of value has 

 been destroyed, and it will require genera- 

 tions of care and protection before this 

 area can again become a source of sup- 

 ply." 



In regard to cutting the reports show 

 that but little timber is now taken awav. 



j 



But considering the manner in which the 

 work is carried on, and the fact that it is 

 usually accompanied or followed by burn- 

 ing, it is far too serious a menace to the 

 welfare of the reserve to be brushed lightly 

 aside. In some instances the lumbering 

 operations are doubtless undertaken in ig- 

 norance of the boundaries of the reserves, 

 but this does not lessen the harm that is 

 actually done. The object is always to get 

 out as much wood as possible as quickly 

 as possible, and in the process all seed 

 trees are usually cleared away, and young 

 growth is broken, bent and slashed most 

 destructively. When fire follows this sort 

 of cutting the ruin of the forest is com- 

 plete. Sometimes, however, it precedes 

 it, for the mill operators are apparently 

 given to firing desirable blocks of wood at 

 a time of year when there is no danger of 

 more than the bark and lower branches 

 being scorched. "It is said that these 

 parties then cut the fire-killed timber with 

 a feeling that they are committing a less 

 culpable theft than if cutting green timber. 



