EOREST POLICY- 



taiiiis are drained by the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers; the 

 western mountains by the Snake and Colorado Rivers; the souths 

 ern'ftiountains (Laramie and Medicine Bow' Mountain?) by f he- 

 North Platte River. . ;• 



3. Distribution : Wyoming is ■ the lodgepole pine State. 

 Yellow pine, limber white pine and Erigelmann's spruce occupy 

 the moister sections. In the Black Hills, yellow pine prevails, 

 forming valuable" forests. Fire has run over all forests. In the 

 Yellowstone Park, lodgepole pine is the prevailing species, of a 

 quality linfit for good timber. Douglas fir and Erigelmann's 

 spruce occur at elevations from 7,000 to io,ooo feet. 



4. Forest ownership: The United States reserves afldi 

 parks (aggregating about 10,000,000 acres) cover over two-thirds 

 of the area of woodlands. Only 510 acres of forest are attached 

 to farms, and only S7,ooo acres owned by, lumbermen. 



5. Use: Yellow pine is used for ties and mining timber; 

 lodgepole pine for fencing, fuel, telegraph poles and ties. The 

 other coniferous species are scarcely ever used. From the Big 

 Horn Range and the Laramie Mountains the mining timber is 

 conveyed to the railroads by chutes. 



6. Forestry movement: None. Inhabitants are rather op- 

 posed to reserves for fear of injury to the growing mining in- 

 terests. The people outside Wyoming, on the other hand, realize 

 thfe importance of reserving forested mountain tracts which sup- 

 ply water to the three greatest rivers of the country. 



7. Laws: Usual fire laws, but not enforced. 



8. Reservations: The Yellowstone National Park contains 

 over 3,000 square miles. It is poorly timbered. Heavy fires pre- 

 vail in spite of military supervision. ' 



The Yellowstone Park forest reserve contains 1,809,280 

 acres and lies east of the park. 



The Teton forest reserve, of 4,127,360 acres, lies south of 

 the Yellowstone National Park. 



The Big Horn forest reserve occupies 1,216,960 acres. 



Of the Black Hills forest reserve, the majority of which 

 lies in South Dakota, 429,000 acres are in Wyoming. 



The Medicine Bow forest reserve has 420,584 acres. 



Features of these reserves are high mountain parks. These 

 parks are very well adapted to stock pasture, notably to sheep 

 grazing. They are, probably, the beds of former lakes. 



167 



