4 MISC. PUBLICATION 9 9, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



tion suffered through the washing out of their reservoirs, dams, and 

 ditches. During the later part of the summer months their crops 

 suffered from the extreme shortage of water. Following heavy 

 summer showers, floods came that threatened the very life of some 

 communities. Koads and trails in many of the canyon bottoms were 

 completely destroyed. The maintenance of the roads between the 

 sawmills and the settlements became very expensive for the timber 

 operators. Conditions grew worse. The injury to watersheds in- 

 creased. Immediate relief was necessary if some of the communities 

 were to continue. After Congress in 1891 had authorized the Presi- 

 dent to establish forest reserves, the conservative people of the State 

 began to seek relief through the reservation of the more important 

 watersheds. In 1897, President McKinley set aside the Uinta 

 Forest Reserve, and on June 4 of the same year, Congress enacted 



Figure 2. — Harvesting a forage crop in Utah 



a law which gave the Secretary of the Interior the authority neces- 

 sary to open these reserves to all forms of legitimate use, consistent 

 with the primary purposes for which they were established and 

 which were defined to be " the protection of a permanent supply of 

 timber for the use and benefit of the citizens of the United States, 

 and the regulation of stream flow.*' 



From 1897 to 1907, from all parts of the State, petitions were sent 

 to Washington asking for the setting aside as forest reserves the 

 areas most in need of protection. The area of national forests 

 to-day is approximately the same as it was in 1907, although 

 Utah is now one of the few Western States in which areas may still 

 be set aside for national-forest purposes by presidential proclama- 

 tion without a special act of Congress. 



The Bookcliff Mountains and the Henry Mountains in eastern 

 Utah, the Deep Creek Range in western Utah, and other isolated 

 areas have never been placed under Forest Service management. 



