NATIONAL FORESTS AND THE INTEE.MOUNTAIN REGION 6 



skins is a matter of no small importance. Furthermore, the future 

 promises more importance to this trade rather than less; for the 

 beaver are increasing rapidly under protection. The mountain for- 

 ests furnish ideal homes for these valuable animals, and forest preser- 

 A^ation and protection assure the continuance of the beaver colonies 

 amid natural conditions where they again thrive and produce an- 

 nually hundreds of pelts of first quality and highest value. Not only 

 the beaver, but many other kinds of fur-bearing animals (fig. 1), 

 find homes in the timbered mountains, and in the future as in the 

 past the fur trade will depend in a large measure upon the perpetua- 

 tion of the mountain forests. 



F-151671 



Figure 1. — Pine marten, a valuable fur-bearing animal, found only in the forests 



IRRIGATION 

 THE MOEMON PIONEEES AND THE BEGINNING OF lEEIGATED FAE]MING 



From about 1825 to 1847 the only industry of the intermountain 

 region was that of the trapper and fur trader. In the summer of 

 1847, however. Mormon pioneers led by Brigham Young forced their 

 way through the passes of the mountains that surround Salt Lake 

 Valley and came down onto what was then a great sagebrush- 

 covered flat. On July 23 the first advance guard drove their prairie 

 schooners out of the mouth of Emigration Canyon to a halting place 

 in what is now the center of Salt Lake City. That afternoon they 

 unslung their plows, hitched up their teams, and started to turn a 

 furrow. The soil was dry and baked and the attempt was imsuc- 

 cessful, so turning aside the waters of the small stream now known 

 as City Creek upon the sun-baked earth, they let it soak overnight 



