THE IRBIGATION AGE. 



167 



GOVERNMENT CONTROL. 



BY LOU BLAKESLEY, BASIN, WYO. 

 (Supt. Water Div. No. 3.) 



A great majority of cases which appear to be of 

 a public nature, when analyzed, are found to be purely 

 local. The locality may sometimes cover several states, 

 but seldom the entire country. This is true of the pub- 

 lic range leasing and the control of our forests. 



These questions are local to a few of our western 

 states, the range question in no way affecting any eastern 

 state. The forest question does not effect the east ex- 

 cept to a limited degree. 



The conditions and control of these two questions 

 here in the west are a farce, except that they are be- 

 coming too serious to be longer considered so. 



In my official capacity, 1 have traveled over the en- 

 tire northwest portion of this state and I have yet to 

 find more than a bare half-dozen persons who are in 

 favor of timber reserves or public range leasing. To 

 begin with, Wyoming has but little timber of market- 

 able value. What little there may be, is hard to get at, 

 so that the preservation of the forests of Wyoming, from 

 a government point of view, is a farce, is not needed, 

 and is absolutely uncalled for. Under present conditions 

 it is almost impossible for the farmer to get building 

 material for a rough log house or barn or for fence 

 posts. It is true that the "Use" book says you can have 

 a certain amount free, by hunting up a ranger and hav- 

 ing him show you where you may get what timber you 

 need. This is one of the big jokes of the present sys- 

 tem. You are compelled to hunt a ranger who may tell 

 you that you may get the timber you desire, over on a 

 certain slope, when you may want to get it on another 

 slope, easier to reach or with timber more to your liking. 

 So far as the actual value to the forests is concerned, 

 that ranger does not know of a certainty where you should 

 get the timber. Possibly the place you desired to get 

 it is the one, where, for the good of the forest you should 

 get it and where he says you "may" get it, is just where 

 you should not get it. I hold that the average ranger 

 does not know where you should get the timber, and, 

 in truth, cares less, but to make a good appearance must 

 tell you to get it some place. Not only the ranger does 

 not know, but the supervisor does not know, neither does 

 the chief forester, and I firmly believe, so far as the 

 actual value to the forests of the future are concerned, 

 do not care whether you get timber on this hillside or 

 some other one. 



A great cry is made that our forests are being de- 

 stroyed and the American people robbed of a rightful 

 inheritance. All timber that is in use or ever will be 

 in use is not destroyed. None of it is destroyed except 

 that which is burned or otherwise lost to the use of 

 mankind, and that amount which has been used for 

 fuel is not destroyed, in that it has served its purpose. 

 While we may be clearing many acres of valuable tim- 

 ber, it is not destroyed, because we need it in our busi- 

 ness. A future generation may need timber, but so does 

 the present one. We can lookout for ourselves as the 

 future ones will have to do. When we run out of tim- 

 ber we can use something else. 



We have had a splendid example of timber reserve 

 in Wyoming and I venture the assertion that no one 

 can point to a single valuable result thereof. There is 



but one thing a forest service can do and that is to pre- 

 vent fires, and if their efforts were limited to that one 

 object, together with the propagating and growing of 

 trees in a country where there was some likelihood of 

 growth and ' development, the people would give it 

 hearty support. The petty annoyance of having to hunt 

 up an irresponsible ranger to ask him for something 

 that already belongs to you is something that the aver- 

 age American citizen with good 'red blood in his veins 

 is not going to stand for. In speaking of "irresponsible 

 rangers," I do not mean that they are an "undesirable" 

 class of citizens, but that they have no direct interest 

 in their work and as a matter of course are not respon- 

 sible to the American people. 



In a country like Wyoming, where difficulties are 

 many and hard to overcome, the people should be helped 

 rather than hindered. All the people in Wyoming or 

 that will be here 7 in the next century will not affect the 

 timber supply so far as they need it for improve- 

 ments on their own places, and, if they do, they need 

 the material and must have it. It is a crime to in any 

 manner prohibit the settlers from obtaining all timber 

 from the public domain that they can use and they 

 never want more than they can use. 



It is impossible to settle this mountainous country 

 without that much help and instead of restricting them, 

 every effort should be made to help them. The average 

 man, trying to build up a home in this desert country, 

 usually has nothing more than a team and a very few 

 dollars and often a large and dependent family. He 

 comes to the new country hoping to build a home. The 

 only building material is the timber on the mountains. 

 All he wants is a few pine logs dry to build a house 

 and possibly a barn many times they get along with- 

 out that improvement. 



Anyone who has ever had the experience of haul- 

 ing from the mountains knows that it costs all that it 

 is worth and often more, but that is the only source of 

 supply. 



One who has not had that experience knows noth- 

 ing of the hardships and trials one has to undergo and 

 no person who has not had that experience or the ne- 

 cessity for it, or been intimately associated with it 

 even if he be the president of the United States or this 

 man Pinchot, has any right, moral, intellectual or other- 

 wise, to have anything to say about the disposition of 

 these resources, much less anything to do with their 

 disposition. 



Never having the same point of view as the settler, 

 they assume a knowledge they do not possess, and in 

 their official duties assume a dictatorship that is utterly 

 abhorrent to the American people. If the President, 

 Pinchot, Garfield or any others of that class were com- 

 pelled, by force of circumstances, to take up one of these 

 desert claims, live on it, improve it, have nothing but a 

 cayuse team possibly not that; a very few dollars 

 possibly none, with no chance to get any except by their 

 daily labor at one or two dollars a day, their families 

 to have nothing but the barest necessities of life, with no 

 luxuries and absolutely no immediate hope of any, a 

 one room log cabin providing they had hunted up a 

 ranger to ask his permission to get that many logs, a 

 dirt roof and floor, the wife compelled to make butter, 

 if they were fortunate enough to own a cow, save up a 

 few eggs and ride in a lumber wagon, say, twenty-five 

 miles, and peddle them out, make a few purchases of 



