190 1. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



:o 



" The antagonistic influences against 

 such a policy are due to the inertia of 

 customary methods of stripping the forest 

 regardless of future crops." 



Farmers to "A delegation of Yakima 



Protest against County farmers called on 

 Grazing. D. B. Shellar, superin- 



tendent of the Rainier for- 

 est reserve recently with the intention of 

 explaining the exact situation of the Cas- 

 cade watersheds. He was engaged at the 

 time in making allotments for grazing priv- 

 ileges and the meeting was postponed. 

 Farmers will prepare petitions and circulate 

 them among the actual settlers of lands in 

 the county, asking the Secretary of the 

 Interior to close the reserve against sheep 

 grazing. This is done as an act of neces- 

 sity for the protection of the people having 

 lands irrigated from the snowfall of the 

 eastern slope of the great Cascades. 



"Applications have been filed by 90 

 sheepmen, asking for grazing for 243,266 

 sheep, and 65 cattlemen have asked for 

 the privilege of grazing 5,056 head of cat- 

 tle. In addition to this five sheepmen ask 

 for permission to graze 24,700 sheep on 

 the Washington reserve. Formal leases 

 have been made and will be sent to the 

 city of Washington for approval. It is 

 understood that the grazing privileges will 

 begin about July 1, and continue for three 

 months. The superintendent of the re- 

 serve introduced three rangers, who are 

 employed at $60 per month to keep all 

 others off the range excepting those hav- 

 ing the official sanction. 



" The farmers, who represent about 90 

 per cent, of the producers of Yakima 

 county, state that the time has come when 



conditions must change. They did not 

 object to sheep grazing in the year- p 

 as there were only a few and the harm 

 done was not noticeable. Now, they 

 the number has increased and the dang 

 have become so great that the sheep" in- 

 dustry has to be recognized as a menace 

 to the peace and prosperity of the agri- 

 cultural classes. 



"'No one has any desire to kill the 

 sheep industry,' remarked a prominent 

 farmer to The Spokesman-Review corre- 

 spondent. ' We merely want our hoi: 

 our crops and farms protected against a 

 possibility of drouth. The way the 

 watersheds are being destroyed and the 

 grasses eaten out the danger point is near 

 at hand. The upper creeks, comprising 

 the Wenas, Cowiche and Ahtanum, have 

 been failing for the past six or eight years. 

 Every man knows this, and further, every 

 farmer in those vallevs knows to what ex- 



J 



tent litigation has resulted over the short- 

 age of water, caused by denuding the for- 

 ests and headwaters of the stream by 

 grazing. Either the 90 sheepmen must 

 cease usins: the forest reserve or the farm- 

 ers of Yakima county must change loca- 

 tions to some other country.' 



" This seems to be the general senti- 

 ment of agriculturists who have given the 

 matter of protecting the forest reserve 

 thought. The water has been decreasing 

 year after year by reason of the range and 

 forests being destroyed. If the watershed 

 is preserved as in former days it is be- 

 lieved there is room for a population oi 

 100,000 farmers and dairymen in the 

 Yakima valley. If the watershed is de- 

 stroyed no additional farms can be main- 

 tained very long." Spokane. Washing- 

 ton, Spokes i a u- Rev i c-.v . 



AMONG FOREIGN AND AMERICAN PERIODICALS. 



The May issue of The Journal of the Franklin 

 Institute contains a short but interesting and in- 

 structive article on the oil of walnuts. The oil 

 of walnuts which is made in Europe from the 

 nuts of the English walnut is chiefly used by 

 artists for paints, because it dries into a varnish 

 which is less liable to crack than linseed oil 



varnish. This oil is however' extensively adul- 

 terated. Mr. L. F. Kebler, the author of the 

 article, finds that the oil of the Black \\ alnut la 

 quite as good. An artist on using it pronounced 

 it a very satisfactory article for fine painting. 

 The oil of the English Walnut is used in the 

 Black Forest as a substitute for olive oil. 



