14 FOREST RESERVES IK^ IDAHO. 



The people of Idaho have no desire to destroy its resources. Thev 

 are intelligent, conservative, and safe people, engaged in the building- 

 up of a gi'eat State of homes, and you may trust to their integrity 

 and honor to as great an extent as you can trust the people of any 

 State in the Union. 



I most earnestly request that the withdrawals that have been made 

 for forest reserves in north Idaho be canceled speedily. Every day 

 that they exist interferes with the advancement of the country. The 

 Coeur d'Alene country should have no forest reserve upon any part 

 of it, and I respectfully request that orders shall be issued to that 

 effect. The Seven Devils mining country referred to is pureh^ a 

 mining country and should be relieved of that burden. And the 

 proposed withdrawals and the withdrawals alread}^ made anywhere 

 within the red lines which I have marked around sections of the 

 map should be canceled. 



I accompany this report with a number of petitions for the can- 

 cellation and change of the forest reserves in Idaho, which will give 

 you some idea of the expression of discontent emanating from the 

 people of that State, and when so many and so important a portion 

 of the people of any State express their disapproval of the polic}^ of 

 the Government, the center of which is so far distant as AVashing-ton 

 is from Idaho, I would suggest that an examination into the reasons 

 given by these protestants should be through channels in a positron 

 to determine the right and justice of the matter. 



I would dwell upon the limitation of power contained in the act, 

 wherein it is provided that lands more valuable for mineral or agri- 

 culture shall not be included within forest reserves. Notwithstanding 

 the existence of this prohibition two or three of the greatest mining 

 camps in Idaho and in the world to-day are proposed to be, and are 

 already, within forest reserves. I maintain that the power does not 

 exist to create and maintain forest reserves under such circumstances, 

 and that where the power has been inadvertently exercised the error 

 should be speedily corrected. 



Sincerely, yours, W. B. Heyburn. 



State of Idaho, 



County of Shoshone, ss: 

 E. J. Roberts, being fii-st duly sworn, on his oath deposes and says : 

 That he is engaged in mining in the State'of Idaho in the Coeur d'Alene min- 

 ing district, and has been so engaged for more than three years past. 



That he is general manager of Federal Mining and Smelting Company and is 

 familiar with mining in all of its branches. That he is familiar with the creation 

 of forest reserves and with the rules governing the same and with the mining 

 within forest reserves. That he has recently been advised that there is a pos- 

 sibility of the creation of a forest reserve to cover the Coeur d'Alene mining 

 region and country adjacent thereto. Affiant further says that he recognizes 

 the benefits and necessity of preserving the water supply in the arid regions, 

 but that the section of the State of Idaho north of the Salmon River is not arid 

 and no part thereof is arid. That the Coeur d'Alene River and its tributaries 

 is the principal stream in Shoshone County, and the only stream draining that 

 portion of Shoshone County adjacent to and surrounding the mines in the 

 Coeur d'Alene mining district. That the said Coeur d'Alene River runs through 

 a country no part of which is arid and flows into Lake Coeur d'Alene, which is 

 a natural storage basin for the waters of the Coeur d'Alene and other rivers, 

 and in which there is sufficient water for all ])urposes at all times.- That all 

 of the lowlands around said stream are overflowed during large portions of 



