66 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



Februai"}', 



shall itself reclaim the lands. All that 

 the bill provides for is that the govern- 

 ment shall make the waters available, 

 so that the settlers, either individually 

 or by cooperation, can get at them, lead 

 them over the lands, and upon them 

 will be devolved the labor and cost of 

 actual reclamation. That labor and 

 cost itself is very large. The cost to 

 the settler is not onl}^ the moneys he 

 must expend in making the ditches and 

 laterals on his own land and for the 



ditch connecting with the high-line 

 ditch or the reservoir constructed b}- 

 the government, but he is to pay, in at 

 least ten annual installments, his pro- 

 portionate part of the cost of the gov- 

 ernment work, and no title to the land 

 entered vests in him until his propor- 

 tionate part is paid as the price of the 

 land. Thus this fund is kept as a re- 

 volving fund and the moneys in it are 

 being constantly applied to the con- 

 struction of new irrigation works. 



THE FORESTS OF ALASKA. 



By Dr. B. E. Fernow, 



Director of the New York State College of Forestry. 



IN the lately published volumes of the 

 Harriman Alaska expedition there 

 is to be found a curious divergence of 

 statements or opinions regarding the 

 forests of Alaska. The writer, who ac- 

 companied the expedition, prepared a 

 longer article on the subject for the 

 above publication, the conclusions of 

 which Mr. Gannett, a few pages further 

 on, seems to negate entirely, both as to 

 the character and the value of both the 

 interior and the coast forest. 



Neither the writer nor Mr. Gannett 

 had any opportunity of inspecting the 

 interior forest. They could, therefore, 

 only interpret second-hand information. 

 Regarding this forest area Mr. Gannett 

 uses the following language: "In this 

 enormous region there must be an almost 

 fabulous amount of coniferous timbers, 

 sufficient to supply our country for half 

 a century in case our other supplies be- 

 come exhausted. ' ' 



The writer, having carefully looked 

 through the scanty references of ex- 

 plorers and surveyors, has not detected 

 any evidences which could with propri- 

 ety be used to make such a statement. 

 On the contrary, the very opposite as- 

 pects of the situation impress them- 

 selves in reading the explorer's reports, 

 and even if there were no such reports 

 on the forest conditions, a mere study 

 of the climatic and soil conditions would 

 lead one to expect that the character of 



the growth must be, and the quantity is 

 likely to be, different from those sug- 

 gested in Mr Gannett' s sentence. In 

 other words, a statement is surely mis- 

 leading which would make the interior 

 of Alaska a vast forest country. 



The sources of information must, to 

 be sure, be carefully used and sifted, 

 for the reporter, often being ignorant 

 of woodcraft or overappreciative of com- 

 fort experienced under harassing con- 

 ditions, may exuberate occasionalh^, or 

 else allow his dismal feelings to lead 

 him into depreciative statements; 3^et 

 the consensus of all who have personally 

 visited this region outside of the shores 

 of the Yukon River supports practically 

 the same story. It must not be forgot- 

 ten that no one man has seen much of 

 the vast interior country, and altogether 

 a really very small part has been seen 

 at all. 



From the accounts of all explorers it 

 appears that the interior of Alaska is 

 in general an open pleateau, hill and 

 mountain country, mostly moss-covered 

 and devoid of trees, but with scattered, 

 more or less open, groves on the lower 

 hill slopes and ridges. In some of the 

 valleys the trees crowd together more 

 densely along the banks of rivers and 

 lakes and cover the many islands in the 

 rivers with dense thickets. In some 

 localities the heads of the streams are 

 surrounded by timber ; Eieut. Henry 



