PROTECTION OF FORESTS AND GAME. 



The following interesting letter has been 

 received from a member of the Teton 

 Guides Association, "organized to furnish 

 sportsmen reliable information, reliable, 

 competent guides and good outfits for suc- 

 cessful hunting trips in the Jackson Hole 

 country at fair and equitable prices." 



Jackson. Wyo. 

 Editor Recreation : 



I am much interested in the Forestry 

 Department in Recreation, and through it 

 I wish to call attention to the present 

 threatening danger to the forests and game 



the valley during July and August. In 

 August and September there were fires 

 everywhere in the mountains. Thousands 

 of acres of fine timber was killed that it 

 will take 50 years to replace. A great many 

 streams went dry, and even the Platte river, 

 in Nebraska, dried up that year. Ranchers 

 all over the West were calling for water to 

 irrigate with. The government had engi- 

 neers in the mountains looking up sites for 

 reservoirs. One site selected was Jack- 

 son's lake, where they proposed to raise 

 the water 40 feet. 



AMATEUR PHOTO BY S. N. LEEK 



TIMBER IN JACKSON'S HOLE KILLED BY FIRE. 



in Jackson's Hole. I say forests and. game, 

 because what affects the welfare of one 

 affects the other. 



In February of this year there was not 

 enough snow in the valleys to allow 

 sleighing, and in the mountains the depth 

 did not exceed 5 feet, instead of the usual 

 average of 10 feet. This light fall of snow 

 in a season recalls the experience of 11 

 years ago, when there was a similar winter 

 with 6 feet of snow in the mountains. The 

 snow went off early in the spring; the 

 ground became dry ; there was but little 

 grass, which made its growth early and by 

 the first of July was dried up in thj valley. 

 We were called to put out a prairie fire 

 July 4, and there were several fires in 



The next winter proved severe. The 

 elk, which suffered no loss the previous 

 winter, came down from the mountains in 

 countless numbers on their winter range. 

 The grass was short, and fire had swept 

 over a part of the range. The elk starved 

 to death by thousands. We have never 

 known such suffering among the game. 

 Driven by hunger, they attacked the set- 

 tlers' haystacks, already too small to meet 

 the needs of the domestic animals. 



How can the burning of the timber dur- 

 ing a dry summer and the starving of game 

 during the next winter be prevented? The 

 first settlers in Jackson's Hole found the 

 valley with little grass, a sage brush flat. 

 By irrigation this same land has been made 



