122 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



working at present. The logs are 

 hauled by rail over one hundred miles 

 to the mill. The output will be largely 

 finished material, which will be con- 

 sumed locally, or shipped to nearby 

 states and into Mexico. 



The third and largest region occu- 

 pies a strip from twenty to fifty miles 

 wide and over 300 miles long, extend- 

 ing from central Arizona southeast 

 into New Mexico. The greater part 

 of this tract is included within Federal 

 forest reserves. The timber is practi- 

 cally continuous over the whole sec- 

 tion, and is pure yellow pine, if can- 

 yons, mountain tops, and some dry 

 slopes, where spruce, fir, and juniper 

 occur, are excepted. This is the lar- 

 gest area of pure pine forest in the 

 Southwest. Owing to the varied to- 

 pography and to local conditions, the 

 stand of timber is not uniform, but 



A good specimen of Western Yellow Pine, 

 48 inches in diameter, Santa Catalina Moun- 

 tains ; altitude 7,600. 



at its best it approaches or equals that 

 of the Zuni Mountains. 



There are two large mills in Arizona 

 cutting the pine from private lands 

 within the boundaries of the forest re- 

 serve. Like the mill operating in the 

 Zuni Mountains, they are band mills 

 having dry kilns and planers, and are 

 equipped to turn out a product in no 

 way inferior to that of eastern mills. 

 The better grades of lumber are manu- 

 factured into doors, siding and mould- 

 ing, and the lower grades into boxes 

 for vegetables and fruit, or sold locally 

 for building material. 



Fire, overgrazing, and drought are 

 the principal evils with which the pine 

 forests of the Southwest have to con- 

 tend. Fires have been universal, 

 though of late they usually have been 

 confined to restricted areas. One fire 

 rarely does serious damage to mature 

 timber, but many of the old trees now 

 standing are more or less injured by 

 repeated burnings, and where condi- 

 tions have been favorable, as in dense 

 stands with much undergrowth and 

 litter, mature timber has occasionally 

 been killed outright. The greatest fire 

 loss has been through the destruction 

 of young pines from a few inches in 

 height to trees under six inches in di- 

 ameter. 



Overgrazing is a serious hindrance 

 to tree reproduction. It is an evil of 

 comparatively recent development, and 

 its effects are most frequently seen in 

 the forest of the lower elevations, 

 where there is less moisture than is 

 found further up in the mountains. 

 Large bands of sheep passing and re- 

 passing over restricted areas destroy 

 young pine seedlings in great number 

 by trampling them, and, during years 

 of drought, when the growth of for- 

 age is scant, the sheep are forced by 

 hunger to eat many plants they would 

 otherwise neglect. Under these cir- 

 cumstances young pines are stripped 

 of their buds and foliage, and are either 

 killed or badly stunted in growth. 



Drought is perhaps the principal 

 factor in determining the distribution 

 of this pine on the lower elevations. 

 Ordinarily yellow pine produces seed 



