82 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 471. 



The Bitter Root Forest Reserve includes a forest region 

 of extremely precipitous and rugged mountains on both 

 sides of the boundary between Montana and Idaho, and 

 covers an estimated area of 4,147,200 acres, being the 

 largest of all the new reserves. East of the summit of the 

 Bitter Root Mountains it contains the sources of all the 

 western tributaries of the Bitter Root River, which waters 

 the broad valley of that name and finally falls into the 

 Columbia. West of the summits of the Bitter Root Moun- 

 tains the reserve includes some of the tributaries of the 

 Clearwater River and many of the tributaries of Salmon 

 River ; it protects, therefore, the sources of streams which 

 can be used advantageously for purposes of irrigation, 

 while the whole is clothed with forests of Yellow Pine, 

 Lodge Pole Pine, Spruce, Fir and Cedar. The forests in 

 this reserve have often suffered from serious fires, many 

 of them probably more than a century old, but no lumber- 

 ing has been done west of the Bitter Root Mountains, and 

 the whole region is rough and broken. It has no value for 

 grazing except over a few small scattered areas, and no 

 considerable deposits of valuable minerals. The forests in 

 this reserve will be able to supply a large amount of 

 material to the inhabitants of eastern Oregon and Wash- 

 ington, which is now one of the richest wheat-producing 

 regions of the United States, and to the people of tree- 

 less southern Idaho. This reserve is probably the 

 largest unsettled region in the United States, there be- 

 ing within its boundaries but three quarter sections of 

 land entered in Idaho, while no land has been entered 

 in Montana. Few persons pass over its rough and 

 difficult trail, and it can, therefore, be easily protected 

 from fire. 



The Washington Forest Reserve extends in Washington 

 from about the one hundred and twentieth degree of west 

 longitude to nearly the one hundred and twenty-second 

 degree, and from the International Boundary southward to 

 a little below the forty-eighth degree of latitude. It extends 

 over both slopes of the Cascade Mountains, and is broken 

 and entirely clothed with forests. Within this reserve, 

 east of the Cascade summits, are the sources of large rivers, 

 important for the irrigation of a region which needs only 

 water to become exceptionally fertile. West of the Cascade 

 summits are some of the heaviest forests on the continent 

 composed of Spruces, Firs, Pines, Cedars and Hemlocks of 

 the first commercial value. Mount Baker, the most northern 

 of the large volcanic peaks of Washington, is situated 

 in the western part of the reserve; it contains 3,594,240 

 acres. 



The Olympic Forest Reserve occupies the high and 

 broken Olympic Mountain region in north-western Wash- 

 ington and contains an estimated area of 2,188,800 acres. 

 This is a country of sleep and rugged mountains, their 

 highest peaks clothed with glaciers and with perpetual 

 snow. The forests here are watered by more copious rains 

 than fall in any other part of the United States, and are 

 composed of enormous Spruces, Firs and Cedars. In pro- 

 ductiveness the Olympic forests are surpassed in the world 

 only by the Redwood forests of California. Few explorers 

 have penetrated far into this region, which from the 

 denseness of the vegetation offers exceptional difficulties to 

 travel, and there is no record that it has been crossed in a 

 north and south direction. This reserve is believed to 

 contain the largest and most valuable body of timber 

 belonging to the nation ; and in no other part of the United 

 States can the forest, uninjured by fire or the axe, be seen 

 over great areas in all its primeval glory. There is no agri- 

 cultural or grazing land whatever in this reserve, and no 

 indications of precious metals have been found in it. Its 

 forests can be made to yield permanently great quantities 

 of timber, and its wildness, the picturesqueness of its sur- 

 face and its remoteness make it one of the most valuable 

 of all the forest reserves. 



The Mount Ranier Forest Reserve is an enlargement of 

 the old Pacific Forest Reserve, which is now carried south- 

 ward along both slopes of the Cascade Mountains nearly 



to the Columbia River, and is made to include a narrow 

 strip west of the original reserve in order to include some 

 of the chief glaciers of Mount Ranier. The name, too, is 

 changed to that of the great mountain which is the chief 

 natural feature of this reserve. The southern exten- 

 sion of this reserve protects the sources of many of the 

 tributaries of the Yakima River, which furnishes the 

 water for an important irrigating plant, and it will also 

 preserve a vast amount of timber of first-rate commercial 

 value. 



The Stanislaus Forest Reserve contains 691,200 acres and 

 lies along the summits of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 

 California, immediately north of the Yosemite National 

 Park, which it joins. Many streams flowing east and west 

 head in this territory and are fed by numerous small 

 lakes and alpine meadows. The forests, except in a 

 few townships, are scattered and without value beyond 

 their influence on the flow of springs and streams. 

 This region has long suffered from the illegal pasturing 

 of sheep and by the fires which always follow the 

 shepherd through the forests on the public domain, 

 and, unless its natural features can be preserved, 

 its value as a water -storage basin will be seriously 

 impaired. 



The San Jacinto Forest Reserve embraces the San Jacinto 

 Mountains in southern California and contains an area of 

 737, 280 acres. This is an arid region, the lower slopes of the 

 mountains being clothed only with a bushy chapparal 

 growth. Scanty forests of stunted conifers, however, exist 

 on the sides of some of the canons facing the ocean and 

 cover the high valleys and elevated slopes, and the preser- 

 vation of these forests will maintain the supply of water 

 needed to irrigate the valleys of south-western California. 

 These valleys before water is poured on them are deserts, 

 but with the aid of water they can be covered with prolific 

 orchards. 



The Uintah Forest Reserve embraces most of the Uintah 

 Mountain Range in northern Utah, and contains valuable 

 forests of Spruce which protect the sources of several large 

 streams, several of which are already utilized for irrigation. 

 The region within the reserve is uninhabited, but there is 

 already a large agricultural population living in the terri- 

 tory immediately adjacent to it, and this population will 

 suffer for water and for a local timber-supply if the fires 

 which have now for many years swept through these 

 forests are allowed to destroy them. 



The establishment of these reserves is the first 

 achievement of the Commission of the National Academy 

 appointed last year by Professor Wolcott Gibbs, the Presi- 

 dent of the Academy, at the request of Secretary Hoke 

 Smith. The Commission during the past summer has 

 examined the general features of the territory now re- 

 served, and the requirements, present and future, of the 

 people living near these forests ; it has laid down their 

 boundaries, and it is upon its recommendation that 

 they have been made. The creation of such a Com- 

 mission appears, therefore, to have been justified ; its 

 duties, however, are by no means completed, and it now 

 remains for it to prepare a scheme by which the thirty-nine 

 million acres of mountain forests can be protected from 

 illegal inroad, and can be profitably managed for the 

 benefit of the whole people of the United States. Under 

 existing laws no one can legally enter the reserves, obtain 

 from them any forest supplies, or carry on mining opera- 

 tions within their borders. Such a state of things, of 

 course, cannot be allowed to exist, and, unless these 

 forests can be made to play the part which national forests 

 play in all other civilized countries, the reserves mustsooner 

 or later be given up and their forests allowed to perish by 

 unrestrained pasturage, fire and unwise cutting. Great as 

 as is the service already performed by the National 

 Academy through this Commission, the task still left to it 

 in organizing a permanent forest service and securing 

 its adoption by Congress is infinitely greater and more 

 difficult. 



