1902. 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



15 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



SAVE THE FORESTS AND STORE THE FLOODS RESERVE THE PUBLIC 



LANDS FOR HOME-BUILDERS. 



By George Hebard Maxweix. 



IN his report on reservoir sites in 

 Colorado and Wyoming, Captain 

 Chittenden says : ' ' Already in the great- 

 est mineral - producing states of the 

 West, California and Colorado, irri- 

 gated agriculture yields a greater wealth 

 of product than the mines." 



' ' Forest and Snow ' ' is the title of 

 Bulletin No. 55 of the Colorado State 

 Agricultural College, recently issued b}- 

 Prof. L. G. Carpenter. In it he saj-s : 

 ' ' The preservation of the forests is an 

 absolute necessity for the interests of 

 irrigated agriculture. The loss of the 

 forest cover means more violent fluctu- 

 ations during the da}', greater difficulty 

 in regulating the head-gates and keep- 

 ing a uniform flow in the ditches, and 

 hence an additional difficulty in the eco- 

 nomic distribution of the water. Also 

 the water runs off sooner; hence the 

 streams drop earlier in the summer, and 

 on account of the lessening of the 

 springs, the smaller is the winter 

 flow." 



In a recent editorial the Denver Re- 

 publican says : ' ' The Eldora fire has 

 swept over an area exceeding 36 square 

 miles of valuable timber, and it appears 

 that it was the result of carelessness or 

 indifference of campers, who neglected 

 to extinguish their fire before leaving 

 their camp. It has destroyed the tim- 

 ber growing on the watershed of the 

 Middle Boulder and South Boulder 

 creeks. The snows on that slope of the 

 mountains will be exposed without pro- 

 tection to the rays of the sun and will 

 melt so rapidly that they will be of com- 

 paratively little value for irrigation next 

 season. Timber once destroyed in the 

 mountains of this state can never be re- 

 stored by a new growth, without the 

 lapse of so many years that this genera- 

 tion cannot count upon the restoration 

 of any forest land. For the people liv- 



ing now, a forest once destroyed is lost 

 forever. 



"It follows, therefore, that some- 

 thing must, be done for the protection 

 of mountain forests, or el.se the time 

 will come when Colorado will be prac- 

 tically without timber. Unfortunately 

 the state is not able to provide this pro- 

 tection. It has not the available funds 

 with which to pay an adequate force of 

 forest wardens. In the Ea.st the senti- 

 ment seems to prevail that it is a case 

 of indifference on the part of our people, 

 as if they did not appreciate that .the 

 destruction of our forests involves for 

 us a terrible loss. It is an erroneous 

 conclusion, and Congress should recog- 

 nize that the forests of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains are not destroyed by the reckless- 

 ness of our people. 



' ' We cannot protect them. We have 

 not the funds with which to pay a suffi- 

 cient number of forest wardens. The 

 forests are, furthermore, on land which 

 belongs to the federal government, and 

 therefore it devolves upon Congress to 

 provide the necessary protection. An 

 effort should be made at the next .se.ssion 

 of Congress to impress the truth of this 

 upon the national government, so that 

 it may provide for a force of men nu- 

 merous enough to give the protection 

 so greatly needed." 



Or else ' ' The time will come when 

 Colorado will be practically without tim- 

 ber ' ' means that the time will come 

 when Colorado will be practically with- 

 out water. This means almo.st annihi- 

 lation to the state's greatest industry, 

 irrigated agriculture, and the serious 

 crippling of its mining industry. 



And yet here is a frank confession 

 that Colorado is powerless to prevent 

 her own destruction. A stronger argu- 

 ment, from facts that stare in the face, 

 could not be made that the national 



