240 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



est botany, silviculture, forest mensu- 

 ration, introductory lectures in forestry, 

 forest protection, research work in for- 

 estry, forest policy of the United States, 

 forest influences, and forest regions of 

 the United States. Practical work in 

 the field will supplement each course, 

 and frequent excursions in the woods 

 will be made with a view of familiariz- 

 ing the student in the identification of 

 tree species. 



j* 



Agricultural A recent letter to the 

 Lands in editor contains an excel- 



Forest lent point on the subject 



Reserves. of the disposition that 



should be made of the 

 small bits of agricultural lands included 

 in the government forest reserves. The 

 writer is fully qualified to speak and we 

 republish his letter in full : 



' ' I noted with interest in the last issue 

 of FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION the para- 

 graph on 'Agricultural Land in the 

 Forest Reserves.' 



" The arguments presented are good, 

 but in the reserves of the Sierra Nevada, 

 and I think elsewhere, there is another 

 strong reason why the small parks and 

 open valleys should not be excluded 

 from the reserves. It is that many of 

 these grassy areas are a necessity to the 

 rangers as grazing ground for their 

 horses. 



"In the mountains the question of 

 horse feed is a vital one to every man 

 who rides the range, and the task of find- 

 ing sufficient grass for his saddle and 

 pack animals is a difficult one for many 

 rangers. If the mountain meadows and 

 parks are excluded from the reserves 

 and come into private hands, or the 

 range cattle are allowed to graze on 

 them unrestricted, the ranger is liable 

 to find himself after a hard day's ride 

 without feed for his horses. To ' pack ' 

 hay or grain enough is impossible be- 

 cause of the excessively high prices for 

 such supplies in the mountains and the 

 distance they must be carried. The 

 only resource for the ranger is to ' stake ' 

 or ' hobble ' his animals every night in 

 some mountain meadow ; hence the ne- 

 cessity of preserving these grassy feed- 

 ing grounds. 



' 'As to this working hardship to pros- 



pective settlers, it is all idle talk, be- 

 cause not one mountain park in fifty can 

 be made to support a family, and to set- 

 tle on them means starvation unless 

 other means of livelihood are at hand. 

 The deserted cabins and abandoned 

 home sites in the mountains attest to the 

 futility of attempting to develop these 

 small isolated patches of so-called agri- 

 cultural land." 



^ 



The Benefits Chief Engineer Newell 

 of Irrigation. has received an interest- 

 ing communication from 

 a well-known citizen of Montana, giving 

 a brief description of the results which 

 followed the construction of an irriga- 

 tion ditch in the vicinity of Missoula. 



In 1900 a tract of land containing 

 2,185 acres was purchased, upon which 

 at that time four families were residing 

 and having a hard struggle to make a 

 living. An irrigation system costing 

 about $5,000 was constructed, the lat- 

 erals covering about 480 acres. As soon 

 as the water was turned in the ditch this 

 land was put on the market at $200 per 

 acre, on five years' time, the purchaser 

 paying 10 per cent of the purchase price 

 down and the balance in 60 equal 

 monthly payments. There was no diffi- 

 culty in disposing of the land at this 

 price. 



Some of the owners of five-acre tracts 

 are now getting as much as $1,500 each 

 year from the sale of the products of 

 their farms. Last year 10 acres of this 

 land sold for $3,300, the same tract hav- 

 ing been sold for $2,000 in 1901. 



The success of the first ditch was so 

 pronounced that another and larger irri- 

 gation system, costing $1,900, was con- 

 structed to reclaim the balance of the 

 tract. It has practically all been sold 

 at from $150 to $200 per acre since the 

 ditch was finished. As an illustration 

 of what water will do on Montana land, 

 this is probably as good an example as 

 can be furnished. 



In 1900 there were but four farms of 

 2,185 acres. Today there are 400 fam- 

 ilies living in prosperity and content 

 and deriving a comfortable living from 

 the cultivation of tracts which in other 

 sections of the country would not be 

 considered as fair-sized gardens. 



