THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



105 



Brothers, the cattle baron is a dream man, like the 

 night man and other intangible vagaries of the cruder 

 years of our civilization. Unfortunately, there are 

 many people, some of them fairly well up in official 

 and other circles, who still cling to the traditions and 

 superstitions of earlier years, and they prove easy marks 

 for those who have ulterior designs. 



"Hands off" is the slogan of the west, and if 

 heeded, the west will eventually be a land of homes. 

 Occasional disputes will arise, may be a man will be 

 killed occasionally, but one small mine horror, or rail- 

 road wreck, will exterminate more human beings than 

 all the range disputes of a hundred years. 



The Denver Stockmen's Convention represented 

 the small stock man, and is entitled to consideration, as 

 the voice of cattlemen of moderate means. Home- 

 makers want no herds of 40,000 cattle running over 

 and tramping out their meagre crops. They want no 

 wide boundaries established in their neighborhoods, 

 that condemns vast tracts to wilderness forever. Leave 

 the west to work out her own destinies, and she will do 

 it well, and show the same integrity and pure pur- 

 poses that has marked the history of pioneers before 

 meddlesome brain-storm patriots discovered that the 

 vanguard of civilization needed guardians. 



There has just come to hand an article by one of 

 the most eminent men of the west, which is remark- 

 able in that it goes into scientific calculations to deter- 

 mine what if any fact exists to substantiate the catchy 

 phrases of the prolific advertiser of the forestry depart- 

 ment. The argument emphasizes our notes in January 

 IRRIGATION AGE, relative to trees and shrubbery drying 

 wells, springs and streams, which observation and con- 

 tact had brought to our minds. 



The article quotes from Professor King of the Ag- 

 ricultural College of Wisconsin, whose ample field of 

 research extends through the primeval forests of Eau 

 Clare, Ehinelander and to the Peninsula. Listen: 

 "Every pound of dry matter contained in a tree con- 

 sumes 500 pounds of water." "Ten thousand square 

 miles of forest consumes 16,000,000 acre feet of water." 

 In other words, the trees represented in a single load 

 of lumber has consumed sufficient water to irrigate a 

 small farm, and still we will hear from the forestry 

 department the catchy remark, "Save the forest and 

 store the floods." 



The article mentioned by Mr. Shumway is here- 

 with given in full : 



The Bureau of Forestry at Washington is such a 

 prolific advertiser and its chief is such a capable poli- 

 tician that he has permitted tlleories to be published 

 both in his own press bureau, conducted at the expense 

 of the government, and in papers and periodicals he 



can influence, which have absolutely no foundation in 

 fact or no relation to a scientific study of forestry. 

 Yet this chief is presumed to be a man of science. How 

 politics perverts the good will and intentions of those 

 who are supposed to represent truth and truth alone ! 



We must allude to the famous motto, "Save the 

 Forests and Store the Floods" devised by George H. 

 Maxwell, and adopted by his disciples of the Bureau 

 of Forestry and of the Hydrographic Division of the 

 Geological Survey, as formerly constituted. Save the 

 forests? Not by removing the tariff on foreign lum- 

 ber, because the Bureau of Forestry has fattened 

 through co-operation with the Lumber Trust. Should 

 the tariff on lumber be removed, the demand for timber 

 for commercial purposes at home would decrease so 

 much that the forestry problem would take care of 

 itself and the Bureau of Forestry would be of no more 

 use to the people than would a department charged with 

 the conservation of the moisture of the seas. When we 

 eliminate the forests on the mountains of the west 

 the people interested in irrigation will receive twice the 

 volume of water to store and to apply to a beneficial use. 

 The only scientific data referring to this subject bears 

 out this assertion. Prof. King of the Agricultural 

 College of Wisconsin found that for every pound of 

 dry matter produced in a tree the tree itself absorbed 

 and dissipated 500 pounds of water. : - 



What does this mean A tree under ordinary 

 conditions requires a space of at least twenty feet 

 square. In sixteen years it will grow so that, includ- 

 ing all the leaves it sheds each year, it will contain a 

 ton of dry matter. To produce this the tree must have 

 used 1,000,000 pounds or 16,129 cubic feet of water. 

 This means a yearly average demand of 1,000 cubic 

 feet of water. This volume would cover the square of 

 twenty feet to a depth of 30 inches each year. Every 

 state having large forest reserves has to provide more 

 water for the preservation of the forests than is counted 

 in all of its flowing streams. A state having 10,000 

 square miles of forests must furnish 16,000,000 acre 

 feet of water for them, or sufficient water to cover 16,- 

 000,000 acres of land one foot in depth. 



In the face of such scientific evidence, how can 

 any bureau, no matter how anxious it may be to mis- 

 lead the public on its own behalf, advocate the theory 

 that trees conserve moisture? How long would a tree 

 have to grow to deposit enough vegetable matter around 

 its roots to hold 1,000 cubic feet of water, the average 

 demand of the tree for a single year? If a tree forty 

 years old will conserve a cubic foot of water in this 

 way and hold it until it can be used by the irrigator we 

 will be surprised. At that time the tree will have 

 wasted (except in so far as its own life is concerned) 

 more than 40,000 cubic feet of water. No vegetable 

 growth saves moisture. The dry farmer can tell you 

 this. He does not plant trees to save the moisture 

 that falls, but he cultivates the soil, thus preventing 

 evaporation, in a large measure, from the surface. Un- 

 til the Bureau of Forestry plants a tree and measures 

 accurately the water it requires and keeps a record of 

 the volume of water it retains by a deposit of leaves 

 and other vegetable matter or shows that beneficial 

 results come from shade furnished by it or winds 

 broken by it, we hope that its organs, both governmental 

 and political, will keep silent on this subject. 



