1901 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



101 



must be had without delay effective 

 action or our occupation will be gone. 



" I am not a prophet of evil, but mean 

 to be a prophet of hope. * * * It rests 

 with you. These reservations are your 

 property, and if you say so these things 

 can be done, but you must say it, and 

 mean it, and work for it." Geo. J. 

 Mitchell before the Farmers' Institute at 

 Etiwanda, California Cultivator. 



J* 

 Forest Reserves The possible relation of 

 and Game Pres- forest reserves to the 

 ervation. preservation of the big 



game in the West has 

 been discussed in a recent issue of Forest 

 and Stream. A correspondent, writing 

 from Wells, Wyo., refers to the fact 

 that in the region of the Yellowstone 

 Park the decrease in the elk beyond a 

 certain point is due largely, as in other 

 parts of the West, to settlement and stock 

 grazing on their winter ranges. In re- 

 gard to the remedy this correspondent, 

 Mr. William Wells, writes : ' 



" Now as regards using the forest re- 

 serves as game preserves. In the first 

 place, the present Teton Forest Reserve, 

 which lies south of and adjoining the Yel- 

 lowstone Park Timber Reserve, should be 

 extended eighteen miles east and forty-eight 

 miles south, thus taking in the great 

 bodies of timber on the Wind River, Gros 

 Ventre and Hoback mountains. All the 

 agricultural land of any value that would 

 be inside of this reserve is already settled 

 upon, and it should be provided that no 

 vested rights held by settlers should be in- 

 vaded. If this should be done, the en- 

 larged reserve properly patrolled and the 

 forest rangers, as at present, instructed to 

 enforce the State game laws, the future of 

 the game in northwestern Wyoming would 

 be assured. Suitable regulations should 

 govern the grazing of stock on the re- 

 serve, and only actual residents on the re- 

 serve should be allowed to graze stock 

 thereon. 



" It must be remembered that the alti- 

 tude of northwestern Wyoming is such 

 that hay is the onlv crop which can be 

 raised with certainty. The ranchmen are 

 dependent upon stock growing, and with- 



out the use of the outside range the ranches 

 are valueless, as enough stock cannot be 

 kept on 330 acres the year round to sup- 

 port a family. The wild game can winter 

 in much deeper snow than can cattle, and 

 the proposed reserve contains winter range 

 enough for all the game at present upon it, 

 without encroaching on the range needed 

 for what stock would belong to the ranch- 

 man upon the reserve. It is the tramp 

 herds of stock belonging to men who own 

 not a dollar's worth of real estate that are 

 destroying the public range. The free 

 range is no longer large enough to sup- 

 port all the stock upon it, and a distinction 

 should be made in favor of the men who 

 are improving ranches and building up 

 the country." 



Commenting on this editorially, Forest 

 and Stream says: "Mr. Wells's letter 

 refers to one district only, and it is not 

 likely that identical conditions prevail 

 near all, or even many, of the other for- 

 est reservations. The character of the 

 country included in these reservations va- 

 ries greatly, and rules suitable for one may 

 not apply to all. One thing, however, is 

 clear. In each reservation there should 

 be a considerable area, where hunting 

 should be absolutely prohibited, which 

 should be an actual and absolute refuge 

 for game, where it could never be dis- 

 turbed. To the country which surrounds 

 them, such refuges would be, in a less 

 degree, what the Yellowstone Park is to 

 the forest reserves which adjoin it ; they 

 would be same reservoirs, which would 

 annually pour forth a surplus of wild ani- 

 mals to stock the surrounding territory. 



"These forest reservations, if wisely 

 and reasonably administered, would not 

 only be attractive places of resort to peo- 

 ple from all parts of the country, but 

 would be for all time sources of consider- 

 able and growing revenue to the States 

 within which they lie, and to the commu- 

 nities situated on their borders, and no 

 class of people in the whole country are 

 so much interested in having the reserval 

 tions made the most of as those who dwel- 

 nearest to them. The difficulty of carry- 

 ing through such a wholesome change of 

 policy is to make the very people who are 



