588 FOREST RESOURCES OF COLORADO. 



wood. The logs are used for joists, on which the earth used for roofing is placed. The 

 foot-hills, immediately adjoining the river-bottoms, are covered with niesquite timber, 

 a kind of shrub with enormous clusters of roots, which are dug out and used as fuel. 

 They make an intense heat, and are almost equal to coal. They also make excellent 

 charcoal for forge use. On the mountains, in various parts of the cwunty, are small 

 quantities of pine, oak, juniper, cedar, ash, hackberry, walnut, and mulberry, generally 

 scrubby, and the pine alone of sufficient size for sawing into lumber. It makes very 

 fair lumber for finishing. The ash is of good quality for wagon-making. A consider- 

 able amount of this timber lies along the bed of the Rio Grande, brought down by the 

 current. It grows rapidly, and is really a valuable timber, being tough and strong. It 

 is being cultivated to a limited extent. Within the last four years the Osage orange 

 has been introduced for hedges and is found to grow thriftily. This and the ash, if set 

 out .along public roads and boundary lines, would, in a few years, snpj)ly a great want 

 in furnishing wood for various uses. The Eucalyptus Is also bei'jg introduced, as well 

 as the Monterey cypress, but the result is not yet determined. — (T. Casad, Mesilla, Dona 

 AQa County, New Mexico.) 



Santa Fe Coumty. — In most of the canons and gorges of New Mexico, timber large 

 and excellent, principally pine, is found in great quantity. The report of the 35th 

 parallel railroad route through New Mexico refers to the supply of timber to be found 

 along the proposed railway lino. From the most reliable data within reach we esti- 

 mate that in New Mexico there are 5,000,000 acres of timber land, including all lands 

 not destitute of tret s. The princijial trees found in the mountain vallejs of New Mex- 

 ico are the ash, walnut, and hackberry, and on the mountains pine, oak, cedar, pifio- 

 real, and piiion. The principal tree of the deep valleys and stream-margins is the Cot- 

 tonwood, a brash tree, which will not make lumber, but it is a beautiful shade tree, 

 found transplanted around residences, and which answers most of the requirements for 

 building and fencing.— (T. M. Senay Baia, Santa Fd, N. Mex., quoting from Brevoort's 

 New Mexico, Her Natural Resources and Attractions, 1874.) 



COLORADO. 



The waste of timber by the early miners and settlers in Colorado was 

 extremely reckless and improvident. Mr. Eaymond, in h s second re- 

 port of Statistics of Mines and Mining (1870), in speaking from his own 

 observation and statements furnished by Mr. Wm. N. Byers, of Denver, 

 sayS: 



When the Territory was settled, some ten years ago, the mountain-sides were found 

 covered with thick forests of pine, spruce, fir, and other trees, most of them of small 

 size and short body. A given space would not give a large quantity of lumber or 

 wood, as compared with many timbered countries, but for that reason it was more val- 

 uable, and economy of more importance, because there was no other source of supply. 

 Generally theso forests were green aud flourishing. Only at rare intervals could a 

 tract be found that had been burned over by the Indians and the trees killed. To- 

 day, certainly one-third, possibly one-half, in all the settled portions of the Territory 

 are dead — killed by fire. Aud outside the settlements, in regions visited at long 

 intervals only by prospectors, their tracks can be everywhere seen in blackened trunks 

 and lifeless, desolate-looking hill-sides. During the dry, i-corching latter summer, 

 the eye seldom glances over the mountain landscape without seeing somewhere — often 

 in several places — the dense column of smoke that indicates a burning forest. Some 

 of this destruction is fairly attributable to accident, more of it to culpable carelessness, 

 and yet more to criminal design. 



Another source of timber waste is in the felling of trees unnecessarily. Often a 

 man, finding a good body of timber for lumber, will go to work and slash down hun- 

 dreds or thousands of trees, thinking that somo other man will come in with a saw- 

 mill and buy his logs. Sometimes the customer makes his appearance, but often he 

 does not until the logs are rendered nearly or entirely worihless by decay and the 

 ravages by worms. But even if the saw- mill comes, "there is no effort at economy. 

 Timber is plenty; it belongs to the United States, and the pioneer has as good a right 

 to it as any ono else. Hence only the best is used. The tree that would furnish three 

 saw-logs and the top two cords of wood, if it belonged to the logger or mill man, in 

 this case supplies but two logs, and the remainder is left to rot or to be devoured by 

 the fire tha is set when the neighborhood has been skinned of its most valuable trees. 

 The saw-mill is pulled up and moved a mile, or five, or ten, to another fine grove, 

 where the same thing is done over again, and so on. At Central City, the oldest and 

 most populous gold-mining center of Colorado, the consumption of wood for fuel is very 

 large. A few years ago it was purchased for $2 per cord, but the increased distance 

 of hauling has advanced the price about ono dollar each year, until now it frequently 

 costs $10. Lumber has to be brought from 20 to 40 miles, aud heavy mill timbers 

 often much farther. And, to obtain these articles, they are robbing and skinning 

 districts that may at any day require their own timber, just as much as Central City 



