THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



313 



years ago, would have greatly benefited the entire industry. 

 While the enactment of these measures is entirely whole- 

 some, they partake largely of the nature of "locking the barn 

 after the horse is stolen." 



The plain fact of the matter is that confidence in all 

 these enterprises has been shattered. This applies equally to 

 the investment in securities and to the settlement of lands. 

 Let anyone who doubts this statement indulge in a tour of the 

 former "boom" districts of the west. 



The Carey Act states, with one or two exceptions have, in 

 the past, lent their official countenance to the most unmerited 

 enterprises and thousands have been led to invest in worth- 

 less lands, water rights and securities upon the specious pre- 

 text that these flotations were in some way safeguarded by 

 both state and federal governments. 



Some of the lurid "booster'' literature of the period prior 

 to 1911 throws an interesting light upon the methods then in 

 favor. As you well know, I introduced at the Irrigation Con- 

 gress of 1910 and 1911 the more or less famous "Anti-Irri- 

 gation State" resolutions which, in each case, called for real, 

 instead of perfunctory, state's control and which was unani- 

 mously adopted. At Salt Lake City, Mr. George A. Snow, 

 chairman of the board of governors, presented to the congress 

 an adequate and complete plan for "commission control" by 

 the states. 



The early months of 1913 presented a psychological op- 

 portunity for "field work" by the congress with the state 

 legislatures, but this most important work had to be neglected 

 because the congress was then struggling for its very existence. 



It is not necessary to digress upon this point the kernel 

 of the whole' situation is that the states, by their long career 

 of criminal neglect, have brought the present era of distrust 

 and paralysis upon themselves and are saddled with a real 

 and tangible moral obligation which only one of them, so 

 far, has had the courage to face and to take steps to dis- 

 charge. I refer to the state of Oregon which, largely as a 

 result of the influence of its enlightened and high minded 

 state engineer, John H. Lewis, has recently appropriated the 

 sum of $450,000 for the completion of the unfinished and 

 bankrupt "Columbia Southern Project," for the relief of its 

 settlers and to redeem the good name of the state. There 

 is an example of the only kind of remedy to acknowledge 

 error and to right it even at a cash cost. 



This state has gone a tremendous distance ahead of all 

 others in the direction of "conservation and co-operation" 

 with the federal government, but that is another story. 



Neither is there wanting in Idaho a decent element that 

 deplores the shame of the state and it has succeeded at least 

 in carrying a "joint resolution" authorizing the use of the 

 "Carey Act trust fund," for the completion of unfinished proj- 

 ects. Even this much was accomplished only after a hard 

 struggle. The measure is good enough as far as it goes, 

 but it simply begs the question. As one example, the entire 

 trust fund would not suffice to half complete the "Big Lost 

 River" project. 



For the last analysis, the safety of any security depends 

 upon the number and kind of settlers, how soon they enter 

 the land, how long they "stick" and whether they can "make 

 good." This class of people has been "frisked" so long and 

 so often that it refuses to listen to any more siren songs, 

 and stays away. 



There's your answer it is arrived at through no dubious 

 process of reasoning, but through the logic of fact. Let 

 the Idaho Securities Commission ponder over it. 



I do not wish one word of what I have said to appear as 

 an impugnment of the Idaho State. Land Board from the 

 regime of Ex-Governor Hawley down to the present day. It 

 has been able, painstaking and conscientious and has done the 

 very best possible, considering its statutory limitations, in 

 the time. Sincerely yours, EDWARD BOHM. 



FOREST NOTES. 



A shingle mill in Maine uses 2,000 cords of paper 

 birch each year in the manufacture of toothpicks. 



The new Chinese republic has established a de- 

 partment of agriculture and forestry. For a long 

 time China had been pointed out as the most back- 

 ward nation in forest work. 



A toy company at Sheboygan, \Yis., started out 

 to use only the waste wood from other mills. It has 

 worked out a system of using all small waste pieces 

 so that practically nothing but the sawdust is lost. 



Austria not only sells timber but timber products 

 from its forest lands, and disposes of about 1,500,000 

 railway ties a year. There is no provision in the 

 United States by which the national forests can dis- 

 pose of manufactured lumber, though the policy of 

 selling standing timber is well established. 



The Canadian government has supplied twenty- 

 five million tree seedlings to farmers, principally in 

 the Alberta and Regina plains region. The United 

 States does not supply young trees to the public, ex- 





The settlers on the Idaho Irrigation Company's 

 project that covers 110,000 acres south of the Magic 

 Dam, and upon which the towns of Richfield, Diet- 

 rich and Gooding are located, will be granted five 

 years additional time to make their final payment 

 for water. 



Rumely Oil Pull Tractor, making trip from Rock Springs to Atlantic 

 City, Wyo. 



cept in a limited area in Nebraska, under the terms of 

 the Kinkaid Act. 



The national forests of Chile cover about 7,000,- 

 000 acres. 



The forest service of India has demonstrated 

 that teakwood grown in plantations is just as strong 

 as that grown in natural forests. 



Even the well-protected forests of Germany are 

 by no means immune from fire, and the Prussian fire 

 protection system makes use of lookout towers and 

 telephones. 



Much of the so-called silk nowadays is made of 

 wood. Germany produces more than one million 

 pounds of this cellulose silk, worth $1,500,000. A 

 ton of wood worth $10 yields cellulose with $20. and 

 this cellulose yields silk worth $850. 



Army bayonets now form part of the emergency 

 telephone outfit of forest rangers, used chiefly in fight- 

 ing fires. This emergency line consists of small in- 

 struments and a coil of fine copper wire. The wire is 

 attached to the nearest telephone line, the bayonet is 

 thrust into moist ground at the other end, and with 

 the circuit thus completed the ranger can talk with 

 headquarters, report his position, and summon fire 

 fighters if necessary. 



