^2 FOREST EESEEVi!S m IDAHO. 



ors and miners are actually engaged in mining." not over 10 per cent 

 has any ^prospecting whatever. 



The statement concerning agricultural lands is not borne out by the 

 facts. This area was withdrawn from settlement very recently. 

 During the long period prior to its withdrawal only about 11,880 

 acres, or 1.6 per cent, had been entered as homesteads, and a careful 

 field examination has shown that but 15 per cent of the land so taken, 

 or about 1.780 acres, is really suitable for agriculture. The rest was 

 taken for timber or grazing purposes. 



Of the vacant lands now under withdrawal, which Senator Hey- 

 burn says include many valleys most desirable for settlement, it is 

 barely possible that 3.000 acres, or four-tenths of 1 per cent of the 

 Avhole. might be entered under a broad construction of the homestead 

 laws. The rainfall of this region is but 10 or 15 inches, and there 

 are few spots where irrigation is feasible. The essential fact, how- 

 ever, is that although these 3.000 acres are withdrawn they are not 

 within the proposed reserve. As the appended table shows, all culti- 

 vable land has been excluded by the boundary recommended. 



If, as Senator Heyburn says, the object of the projected Pacific and 

 Idaho Xorthern Railroad will be defeated by this reserve, that object 

 must be solely to remove the inferior forests of the Cuddy and Seven 

 Devils ranges, upon wliich a large and growing population depends 

 wholly for an already inadequate water supply. The projected route 

 of the road nowhere crosses the proposed reserve, so its construction 

 could be hampered only by the segregation of some tie timber which 

 might be within hauling distance. The insignificant amount of with- 

 drawn farming land previously described, even were it not to be re- 

 stored to the public domain, could hardly furnish any perceptible 

 support to a railroad or seriously affect the future of Idaho. 



Even the lumbering possible if the lands were left subject to the 

 timber and stone laws will be little affected by the reserve, for all of 

 the commercial timber available on the east of the proposed road, and 

 most of that on the west, has already been taken up. That which is 

 included is the commercially inferior woodland on the higher slopes, 

 despised and left by the timber cruiser, but of incalculable value to 

 the miner, the fuel-using settler, and the irrigator of the arid and 

 water-needing AVeiser Valley. This reserve, as well as the Sawtooth, 

 Payette, and Henry's Fork areas, is not only indorsed but vigorously 

 urged by the State engineer of Idaho and the Reclamation Service. 

 Among the evidence concerning the Seven Devils area presented by 

 Senator Heyburn is a petition against the reserve which gives as 

 objections the statements that no water protection is needed, that 

 much of the area is agricultural land or barren, and that it will flood 

 the market with '* scrip." The first two of these have been answered 

 above. The third does not bear comparison with the appended table, 

 which shows that but three-tenths of 1 per cent of the whole area con- 

 sists of lands which are apt to become base for lieu selection. 



SQUAW CREEK. 



Little reference is made by Senator Heyburn to the other division 

 of the proposed Weiser Reserve (the Squaw Creek division) other 

 than its inclusion on his map in the " determined " mineral class. As 

 a matter of fact, one doubtful coal claim constitutes the only mining 

 or prospecting activity in the tract. 



