70 



EVERGREENS OF COLORADO 



four years. Thus the great forest fires which devastated the mountain 

 forests in Northern Idaho did more than to destroy millions of dollars' 

 worth of timber and hundreds of human lives. A recent news item states 

 that the flow from a burned over watershed, which furnishes the city of 

 Wallace, Idaho, has been very evidently changed since the great fire of 

 1910. Thus the minimum flow of the stream, which was formerly not 

 less than one thousand miner's inches, has, since the forest fire, fallen to 

 about 250 miner's inches at the minimum flow. The weather records at 

 Wallace show that the precipitation, however, has been about normal for 

 the region during the time since the fire. This change in the regularity 

 of the stream flow which also furnishes water power for the development 

 of electricity, has made it necessary to expend money in the development 

 of steam power to furnish light and for the pumping of water, a matter 

 not heretofore required. 



P'ig. 56. Tree-clothed mountain slopes offer the chief attraction hert. 

 The light-colored foliage in the left foreground belongs to aspens in 

 golden autumn colors. 



FORESTS AND SCENERY. 



Not the least important office of the evergreen forests in Colorado is 

 the part which they play in making our mountain scenery attractive and 

 beautiful. There are few sights more ugly and depressing than great 

 wastes of jagged, naked mountain sides with no foliage of shrub or tree 

 to soften their rugged barrenness. The mighty cliffs and vast gorges of 

 our mountains are awe-inspiring in themsehes, but without the presence 

 of trees clinging in their shelter or of forests sweeping up their very bases, 

 our mountains can hardly be called attractive or beautiful. The loveliness 

 of those mountain parks which have been spared from the devastating 

 effects of forest fires is due in large measure to the tree growths which 

 they harbor. Trees, alone, in their variety of form, texture of leaf, color 

 of foliage and character of bark, can supply the necessary setting of a fine 



