27S 



THE FORESTER. 



November, 



equally to the advantage of forest protec- 

 tion and of the grazing interests. 



It should be remembered that the forest 

 reserves, lying on high ground, furnish 

 summer range for large numbers of ani- 

 mals which could not be carried through 

 the year by the winter range alone. 



SMALL WESTERN YELLOW PINE BROWSED BY SHEEP. SUCH DAMAGE 

 IS UNUSUAL EXCEPT WHEN THERE IS OVERGRAZING. 



his prosperity depends, is inseparably 

 bound up with the preservations of the 

 forests. He points out with justice that 

 the irrigation interests are the great per- 

 manent interests over large portions of the 

 West ; that the capital invested in irrigation 

 is, on the whole, far greater than that in- 

 vested in the range and 

 in range stock ; and 

 that the destruction of 

 his industry will be the 

 gravest possible blow 

 to the prosperity of the 

 West. 



The miner is almost 

 equally interested in 

 the preservation of the 

 water supply, and far 

 more directly so in the 

 continuance of a sup- 

 ply of timber. Some 

 of the great mines of 

 Colorado and other 

 States are already be- 

 ginning to suffer seri- 

 ously from destruction 

 of tributary forests. 



The railroad man, 

 who prospers with the 

 general prosperity of 

 the country through 

 which his lines pass, 

 favors the develop- 

 ment of irrigation, of 

 grazing, of lumbering, 

 and requires vast num- 

 bers of ties and vast 

 amounts of timber for 

 the construction and 

 maintenance of his 

 road. His interest 

 varies with that of his 



But the problem of grazing in the forest 

 reserves involves more factors than forests 

 to be preserved and stock to be fed. Other 

 interests, of vital consequence to the west, 

 are equally at stake and must be equally 

 protected. None of them can be neg- 

 lected, nor can any one be considered to 

 the exclusion of the rest. The wise ad- 

 justment of the grazing question must be 

 a compromise based on a just consideration 

 of all the various interests concerned. 



The irrigation farmer realizes with con- 

 stantly increasing force that the continu- 



largest constituents. 



The small rancher in many portions of 

 the West is intensely hostile to the sheep 

 men, chiefly because of the unfair treat- 

 ment he has sometimes received at their 

 hands. Herders have often taken delight 

 in driving their sheep up to his fence and 

 consuming in a day forage which would 

 have kept his domestic stock all summer. 

 He is often fearful, too, that his interests 

 will suffer at the hands of great cattle cor- 

 porations through the appropriation of the 



range. 



The cattle man, as a rule, sees in the 



ance of the water supply, upon which sheep man a late comer whose more re- 



