76 SQKVEYS OF FOREST EESKRVES. 



knotty character of this tree permits it to furnish only lumber of low- 

 grade, but its value to the treeless range country farther east is great 

 and will steadily increase. The reproduction of the spruce is fairly 

 good. 



The alpine fir. with average measurements of 50 feet in height, 12 

 inches in diameter, and no clear trunk, will furnish valuable mining 

 timber at the higher elevations, where it forms practically the only 

 forest growth. 



Occasional areas, originally cleared by fire and since covered with 

 grass, exist in the lower portions of this region. Long stretches of 

 these parks are now covered with groves of the quaking aspen, a tree 

 of no present commercial value. Under consistent protection from fire 

 these areas may be expected eventually to resume their covering of 

 useful coniferous trees. 



FIRE, EASTERN SLOPE. 



Owing to the protection afforded by its inclusion within the Indian 

 reservation, this area has suffered comparatively little from forest tires. 

 Corresponding portions of the Rocky Mountains farther south, hitherto 

 unprotected, have lost by fire square miles of forest where the eastern 

 slope of the Flathead will count but acres. With its segregation from 

 the Indian reserve, and the influx of prospectors and miners which will 

 take place as soon as the region is thrown open, forest fires will increase 

 to a very serious extent unless active preventive measures are begun 

 during the coming spring. Fires sweep through the lodge-pole pine 

 with surprising ease, aided by the inflammable scaly bark with resin- 

 ous exudations, and by the grass and dry waste under the trees. In a 

 majority of cases the trees are killed, but not consumed, and they stand 

 bleached and white for many years, in the end falling gradually across 

 each other until the burnt region is often impassable for horses, and 

 almost so for men. Undergrowth springs up in quantities among the 

 standing and fallen dead trees, but rarely lives to reach any consider- 

 able size. Subsequent and usually hotter fires cousutne green and dead 

 trees together, and burn off completely whatever vegetable soil may 

 still remain. By the succession of such fires, which destroy crop after 

 crop of young trees and gradually exhaust the soil, the open grassy 

 stretches called parks are formed. 



Fires in this region occur during the summer and early autumn, and 

 their prevention will be a comparatively easy task if the cooperation of 

 miners and prospectors can be secured. 



WATER, EASTERN SLOPE. 



Most of the streams of this region are important feeders of the Milk 

 and Marias rivers, whose value to the cattle industry farther east 

 demands the protection of their headwaters. Irrigation, except for 

 grass, must remain unimportant on this slope, and floods are to be 

 feared only to a secondary degree. 



MINING, EASTKRN SLOPK. 



Prospecting has hitherto been illegal on that portion of the reserve 

 which once formed i)art of the Blackfoot Indian Reservation; but it 

 is widely believed that mines of importance exist, especially in the 

 watershed of Swift Current Creek, and numbers of prospectors are 

 waiting in the surrounding country for permission to enter the region 

 to search for minerals. The protection of the timber for this use is one 

 of the most important reasons for Government care. 



