1902. 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



115 



On September 26 the park 

 Clear Creek between Santa Fe and Big 

 County. Chief Mountain was dis- 



covered to be on fire. This 

 conflagration was of incendiary origin, 

 and the parties having been brought to 

 trial, two of them were fined ten dollars 

 each. But for the efforts of the state 

 timber appraisers and the county offi- 

 cials, the damage would have been very 

 great. As it was, o\&x fifteen hundred 

 acres were burnt over. 



October 2 1 a fire started on the south 

 slope of Leavenworth JNIountain, four 

 miles above Georgetown, denuding 

 about 100 acres. Employes of the 

 State Land Board, assisted by resident 

 miners, kept it from spreading into the 

 large timber of the main range. 



On September 28 a fire started 

 Eagle on the mountains near Lime 

 County, and Willow creeks, in the 

 neighborhood of Red Cliff, 

 from sparks scattered by a saw-mill 

 Avhich is operating there. An area of 

 thirly-foiir sqiiaic miles was denuded. 

 The mining interests of Leadville will 

 be sexerely affected, for the reason that 

 this district hitherto supplied all the 

 timbers used in that important center. 



On July II a fire started at 

 Larimer a point on the western slope 

 County. of the Medicine Bow Range, 



24 miles west of Loveland, 

 in a locality containing the heaviest 

 timber remaining in the state. This 

 tract is forty by sixty miles in extent. 

 Fortunately, only about i ,740 acres were 

 denuded, but the loss was 12,000,000 

 feet of standing timber, 11,000,000 of 

 which belonged to the federal govern- 

 ment and 1,000,000 to the state. 



The counties of the west- 

 The Western ern slope which suffered 

 Slope. so severely last year had 



but slight damages to re- 

 cord during 1901. The people are de- 

 termined that fires shall be stamped 

 out. 



Approximately one hundred 

 General square miles of timber lands 

 Results. were laid bare during the 



summer of 1901. There is 

 now not a single county in the state 

 which does not show continuous fire 

 scars. The state government officiall}' 



says that a timber famine is imminent, 

 and that recourse must be had to a res- 

 ervoir system if the irrigated lands are 

 to be watered according to their needs. 



If the results of this destruction af- 

 fected the people of the commonwealth 

 alone, it might be said that, as they 

 suffer from their own indiscretion, noth- 

 ing further ought to be done in the 

 matter. But Colorado is the mother of 

 rivers. The fires at the headwaters 

 of the Platte, the Arkansas, the Rio 

 Grande, and the various water-courses 

 combining upon the western slope into 

 the river system of the Colorado del 

 Occidente affect the nation at large. 

 These streams are fed by the snows that 

 whiten the Great Divide or by the springs 

 emanating from them. With the tree 

 growth stripped from the water-sheds, 

 the snows will be melted by the first 

 heat of summer, and the water will rush 

 in torrents down the shallow beds of the 

 Missouri, to the destruction of farm 

 lands and homesteads ; and there arc no 

 true glaciers in our mountains which 

 might supply a flow in the later part of 

 the seasons. WHien once each year's 

 snow^s are melted, the supply of water 

 is gone and the flow must stop. 



The remedy for all this destruction 

 and waste lies in the hands of the fed- 

 eral government. The government is 

 the owner of the soil, but it pays no 

 taxes. The mountain counties are poor. 

 The state government, although anxious 

 to prevent losses, is but rarely able to 

 expend any money upon matters not 

 strictly utilitarian, or what may be con- 

 sidered as such by the party which hap- 

 pens to be in power. The new law is 

 working weU, and the State Land Board 

 has done all it could ; but it is not only 

 hampered by want of juri.sdiction over 

 the federal lands, but also by a contin- 

 uous lack of funds ; therefore the fed- 

 eral government ought to care for its 

 property. That it is able to do this is 

 proven by the admirable results achieved 

 in its management of the reserves. All 

 of the timber lands, both within and 

 outside of the forest reserves, should be 

 placed in charge of the Bureau of For- 

 estry, the superintendents, supervisors, 

 and rangers put under civil service rules, 

 and the law rigidly enforced. There is 



