FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Jaw. 31, 1884. 



FOBEST WEALTH. 

 TN a recent article on Forest Schools in Europe we alluded 

 ■*- to the great loss just ahead of us because of our reck- 

 less waste of the woods with which the white man found 

 this country so richly endowed. 



That loss was stated as likely to reach the bewildering 

 total of a billion dollars a year, that can he estimated and 

 measured with some degree of certainty | he-sides a vast 

 amount of incidental damage through the crippling of the 

 industries dependent upon wood, and especially the white 

 pine, for their material ; through climatic cliange, and through 

 diminished water supply for the needs of cities, for agricul- 

 ture., and for transportation. 



Just a few figures to show that this is not wild guessing. 

 Mr. James Little, of Montreal, who is no doubt one of the 

 most painstaking and well-informed statisticians upon this 

 subject, gives the value of the lumber produced in the United 

 States, "as it falls from the saw," for 1882 as not less than 

 three hundred millions of dollars. Of this inconceivable 

 total, white pine is the principal factor. We have almost 

 reached the end of our supply of that wood. At our pres- 

 ent rate of consumption not more than seven years hence 

 we shall see the last of it. Prof. Sargent, curator of the 

 Arnold Arboretum, connected with the Bussey Institution 

 of Agriculture belonging to Harvard University, is 1 also the 

 special forest statistician of the U. S. Census Bureau. He 

 reported in 1882 to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture 

 that only eighty billion feet of white pine remained at that 

 time in the United States, and this total included much 

 small and poor timber. He said that the average annual 

 consumption was then ten billion feet, and the cut for the 

 year next after his estimate was the largest ever made. 

 .Nearly two out of the eight years' supply which remained 

 when Prof. Sargent made this terrible revelation have 

 already goue. That statement was the cause which doubled, 

 and in some cases more than doubled, the price of standing 

 w T hite pine. In favorable locations it is now held at two 

 hundred dollars an acre and often more. 



Mr. Little further assures us that the Domimon of Canada, 

 except for her supply upon the Pacific coast, is almost as 

 badly off as we are. Her stores, which were thoughtlessly 

 spoken of as exhaustless, are not so. From earliest times 

 men have been so impressed with the magnitude of great 

 forests that they have called them inexhaustible. But not 

 even tropical abvtndance and reproductive power could supply 

 the awfully expeditious, and awfully wasteful modern 

 methods of lumbering with material for any great time. 



The pine of the Pacific coast, though, no doubt, rich and 

 abundant, will be very expensive by the time it is brought 

 to the markets w T hich the forests of Minnesota, Wisconsin, 

 Michigan and Canada have been supplying. Besides it 

 will be found a far from limitless store if attacked as the 

 woods of the East have been. 



But to return to our figures: $300,000,000 at the sawmills 

 and $450,000,000 at the places of consumption was the value 

 when Mr. Little made his estimates. To replace it from 

 other lands (if they could spare it, which they could not) 

 would cost two or three times more, and would require more 

 than all the tonnage of seagoing vessels in the world to 

 transport it. Here, then, is a commodity which will soon 

 he gone, and when gone would cost not less than a billion 

 dollars a year to replace if it could be had. 



Since we cannot replace it from abroad, what shall be 

 done? Passing by with a mere mention the obvious expe- 

 dient of using as many substitutes as possible for white pine 

 in buildings — and if non-combustible materials like iron, 

 stone, brick, etc., are used, the saving in insurance will be 

 immense — we come to the matter of economy in cutting and 

 marketing. 



Pine lumbering, as at present carried on, is a terribly 

 wasteful business. Experts say that on an average fifty 

 small trees are sacrificed in getting out one large one. Tops 

 and brush are left where they become resinous tinder heaps 

 in a dry time, and any spark may start a conflagration 

 that no man can stop. Campers, hunters and anglers often 

 start fires through carelessness. Every reader of Forest 

 and Stream who goes into the woods should appoint him- 

 self a committee of one to impress upon the thoughtless the 

 duty of taking care not to start fires. And the public ought 

 to protest against leaving brush as lumbermen generally- do 

 leave it, Forest fires often cost awful waste of life, such as 

 ah can remember to have occurred in Wisconsin and Michi- 

 gan within a few years. 



But after all , the great dependence must be upon repro- 

 duction. This is not by any means impracticable. Almost 

 always, if fires and cattle and other browsing animals are kept 

 off land which has once been covered with white pine , it 

 will soon seed itself. Sowing is not a complicated matter if 

 the young shoots do not appear thick enough. Then trim 

 up and thin out, as the case demands, and in fifty years 

 there will be from 100,000 to 150,000 feel, of lumber to the 

 acre; and the material taken out in the interval will, in many 

 cases perhaps in most, pay taxes, interest and cost of labor. 

 In 1800, a tract of land in New Hampshire, which had 

 been burned and cleared, was allowed to seed itself with 

 white and Norway pines. Hon. Levi Bartlett became owner 

 in 1825. He thinned two acres, taking off over half the 

 smallest trees, which he reported much more than paid, 

 a9 fuel, for the labor of this thinning. Twenty-five years 

 later a careful estimate showed that the land which had 

 been thinned was worth at least one-third more tlian that 



which had been let alone, "He thought that had the land 

 been judiciously thinned yearly, enough would have been 

 obtained to have paid the taxes and interest on the purchase, 

 above the cost of cutting and drawing out, besides bringing 

 the whole tract up to the value of the two acres which had 

 been thinned Out," At the end of twenty -five years from the 

 seed the larger trees were fr»m forty to fifty feet high, eight 

 inches on the stump, and furnished timber which could be 

 hewed for rafters. "After the next twenty -five years ( fifty' 

 from the seed) he * * estimated that the trees left on the 

 two acres would average six to eight feet apart. They were 

 mostly Norway pine, ten to twenty inches in diam- 

 eter, and eighty to 100 feet high. He was greatly surprised 

 seven or eight years after this to see the increase of growth, 

 especially in the two acres thinned thirty years before. The 

 owner had done nothing, except occasionally cutting a few 

 dead trees.'' That which had been thinned was now worth 

 twice as much as that which had not been. There was not 

 twice as much wood, but owing to the greater size and length 

 of the trees, they were worth twice as much at the mill. 

 "There were hundreds of Norway and white pines that could 

 be hewn or sawed into square timber from forty to fifty feet in 

 length." "On the part left to Nature's thinning there was a 

 vastly greater number of dead frees — many of them fallen, 

 and nearly worthless." (Hough's Report to Department of 

 Agriculture 1877, pp. 400 and 401.) It was estimated that at 

 this time the land would yield 150,000 feet of lumber to the 

 acre. 



At the enhanced price which, twenty-five years from now, 

 white pine will surely bring it is «asy to see that there is 

 money in these two things; cutting only the large, and in 

 every way saving the small trees; and in planting, protecting 

 from fire and cattle, and thinning wherever white pine will 

 thrive. In another article we may speak of methods of prop- 

 agating and cultivating other trees which will mature more 

 quickly, and furnish for many uses an acceptable substitute 

 for the white pine. 



AN OREGON EPISODE. 



IX WHICH IT TS RELATED HOW KIT .lACKSOX'S MTJIiE WAS 

 SERE. 



4tT OOK, boys, quick, thar goes one of the Big Sandy 

 l^J cattle as sure as Kit Jackson's mule." 

 Three men sprang to their feet from a prostrate log, where 

 they had been sitting, and gazed eagerly in the direction 

 indicated by the speaker; just in time to catch a glimpse of 

 a large animal, evidently of the bovine species, as it disap- 

 peared in a thicket of tall salmon berry bushes about two 

 hundred yards distant, 



The time was early morning in the latter part of Septem- 

 ber, The place was a large ' 'burn" between the Big and 

 Little Sandy, two small streams that spring from sources on 

 or very near Mount Hood and flow in a northwesterly direc- 

 tion until they reach the Columbia. The men w T ere four 

 hunters, who, with four pack animals, had been hunting in 

 the vicinity for nearly a week, and whom I will briefly in- 

 troduce to the reader. Wilson, the speaker above mentioned, 

 was a tall, spare man, between forty and fifty r who owned 

 a small clearing on the great trail from Eastern to Western 

 Oregon that skirted the base of Mount Hood as it passed 

 through the Cascade range, Here he had built a small log 

 cabin, where his wife and several children resided, and 

 where Wilson himself, who did a very small amount of 

 farming— and no end of hunting and trapping— put up when 

 he was out of the mountains. His dress was a nondescript, 

 affair of buckskin and butternut, and his rifle a long octagon- 

 barrel muzzeloader, with a buck-horn sight, such as was al- 

 most invariably seen in the hands of the old line of Western 

 hunters and trappers twenty years ago. Two of the remain- 

 ing three were brothers, named Charles and Ben Doyle, who 

 were several years younger than Wilson, and ow T ned a farm 

 together a few miles from the location made by the latter. 

 The last of the party was the writer, who had drifted up 

 info that remote quarter from San Francisco on purpose to 

 have a good hunt, and a surfeit of venison. 



Before going further it may not be out of place to describe 

 the nature of a "burn" for the benefit of those unacquainted 

 with the terms used in the far West. The immense forests 

 of pine, spruce, hemlock and fir that cover the western 

 slopes of the mountain ranges from Mcndecino county, Cal... 

 to Alaska are subject almost every year to devastating tires 

 that destroy sometimes in one year more timber than all the 

 sawmills that are scattered through that country have con- 

 sumed since its first settlement by the whites. These tracts, 

 which are frequently many miles in extent, are called 

 "burns." All, or nearly all, of the trees will be killed, 

 many of them entirely 'consumed, others are burned so 

 badly at the base that they are overthrown by the winter 

 gales, and the remainder, stripped of bark and foliage and 

 bleached by sunshine and storm, present anything but an in- 

 viting picture to the lovers of the beautiful in nature. 



These "burns," however, are the favorite resorts of almost 

 every species of game found in the country. After the fire 

 comes a rank growth of wild pea vine, salmon and salal 

 brush. Then come the deer, who feed greedily upon the 

 pea vine, while bear and grouse grow fat upon the salmon 

 and salal' berries, especially the latter, which are frequently 

 found in such profusion that they can be stripped off by the 

 handful, and as they much resemble a large huckleberry in 

 size, color and taste,* are not to be despised by the hunter 

 himself. 



With this explanatory digression, I return to my camp-fare 

 on the Sandv. I use the word "camp-fire" advisedly, for 

 that, was about all there was to indicate the place where we 

 had located, unless it was the four horses tied to the bushes 

 near by where the pea vine was thickest, The certainty of 

 fine weather in this season and latitude obviated the neces- 

 sity of a shelter of any kind, and therefore we had none. 

 Four beds made by layers of pea vine afoot deep and cov- 

 ered with blankets occupied the space on one side of the fire, 

 and a small Dutch oven,. an old tin coffee pot, with a few 

 cups of the same material, and a sack of self-raising flour, 



comprising the entire kitchen outfit, were scattered about on 

 the other. The limb of a fallen tree, conveniently located, 

 furnished us with comfortable seats when Ave were not 

 lounging upon the blankets, and also a rest for our rifles and 

 extra clothing. Just beyond the kitchen utensils the saddles 

 of eight or nine deer wrapped in the hides and tied readyfor 

 packing were piled together— for we were making arrange- 

 ments to leave the burn that day — while a large buck, upon 

 whose sides the clear fat was at least half an inch thick, and 

 which had for that reason been selected for our special de- 

 lectation, w r as suspended just clear of the ground from an- 

 other limb of the fallen pine. Over beds of coals drawn out 

 on each side of the fire, and transfixed upon forked sticks, 

 with one end stuck into the ground or beneath a stone, hung 

 several ribs of the above mentioned buck, the rich fat slowly 

 dripping on to the coats, and sending up to our nostrils those 

 delicious, appetizing clouds, whose flavor lingers with me 

 still. 



It was thus we weie situated, and thus we were engaged, 

 when Wilson will) a pone of bread in one hand and a half- 

 picked rib in the other aiosc fiorn his seat, and after scann- 

 ing the brush as far as he could see with the instinct of a 

 true hunter, brought us all to our feet by the remark with 

 which I have headed this chapter. To the Doyle brother* 

 there did not seem to be. anything very mysterious about the 

 affair, but the writer, who had only been upon the tipper coast 

 three or four weeks, was as profoundly ignorant, of exactly 

 what was meant by r the "Big Sandy cattle." as he was of the 

 certainty of Kit Jackson's mule. 



"How many of them are left now, Wilson?" said Charley 

 Doyle, after we had become satisfied there were no mere 

 cattle in sight, and resuming our seats, had attacked the 

 spare ribs with renewed vigor. 



"Only three or four. Miller killed erne early last spring, 

 and saw one heifer and two steers besides, but as there were 

 at least seven when they were first seen and only three are 

 killed, I think there are four yet," was the reply.* 



Upon inquiry I found that the cattle were some that had 

 been lost from a herd 1 hat a drover had attempted to drive 

 across the mountains nearly two years before, and being 

 overtaken by a severe storm, the whole herd had stampeded 

 into the timber and many of them were never recovered, but 

 having broken up into small bauds and drifted off miles 

 away from the road, had become much wilder than were 

 the deer in that vicinity. 



"I think we'd better give them tellers a whiil before we 

 dust out of this," said Wilson, sending a denuded rib spin- 

 ning Over the brush, and taking a fresh one from the fire. 

 This suggestion seemed to meet with ihe approval of all 

 parties, the novelty of the thing being of itself Sufficient to 

 enlist my hearty co-operation. So it was agreed to postpone 

 our departure another day, in order to give the wild cattle 

 "a whirl." Accordingly after breakfast was finished we 

 rolled up the blankets* tied the horses to fresh feed, and 

 shouldering our rifles struck out toward the narrow bottom 

 of the Big Sandy, where the animals hud disappeared. So 

 thick was the fallen timber that our progress on toot through 

 the burn was exceedingly slow, and going on horseback was 

 entirely out of the question, for it had been with the great- 

 est difficulty- that we had succeeded in getting our horses 

 into the place selected for our camp, although the intelligent 

 brutes, who had all been raised in the mountains, never failed 

 to attempt to surmount any obstacle that we led them up to 

 by the bridle. Upon reaching the edge of the bottom it be- 

 came evident that our only chance of success lay in separat- 

 ing into two parties, one to go to the upper end of the bottom 

 and lie in wait at the passes, while the other beat up from 

 below. Wilson and I therefore slowly moved up the edge 

 of the bottom, while the Doyles went for the lower end. 



Reaching our destination we sat down on a log to wait, 

 and knowing it would be some time before t he boys below 

 us would be in a position to need our assistance, 1 thought it 

 a favorable opportunity to learn something of the history of 

 my companion, which* I had reasons to believe had been 

 rather an eventful one, as he had been many years in the 

 State, and was a volunteer scout all through the long and 

 bloody struggle of the settlers with the Rogue River Indians. 

 With most men who have spent many years hunting and 

 trapping, especially in those portions of the country in tested 

 with hostile Indians, silence becomes a second nature, the 

 necessity of caution, the dearth of any great variety of sub- 

 jects to excite conversation, and the very limited number of 

 their companions, all tend to promote this reserve until it 

 becomes habitual, and as Wilson was no exception to the 

 rule, my efforts to draw him out were only partially success- 

 ful such as they were, however, I give in substance with- 

 out any attempt at a literal rendition. 



"Wilson," said 1. as a leader, "were the Rogue River 

 Indians a cowardly pack of ragmuffjns like the Diggers, or 

 did they more nearly resemble the Sioux, Cheyennes and 

 other warlike tribes of the buffalo country?" 



"They were the bravest tribe of reds I ever saw, and were 

 themselves so confident that they were nearly our equals 

 man for man, that Capt. John, their war chief, offered to 

 select a given number of men and fight a pitched battle with 

 an equal number of whites, the result of which should de- 

 cide who should possess the land. Scores of the settlers 

 were eager enough to accept the challenge, but of coure no 

 one had any authority for such a proceeding." 



"Did you have any hand to hand encounters with them?" 

 "We had many of what might be called rifle duels, but 

 the country was so rugged and so heavily timbered thatthose - 

 were usually conducted at very short range, and as the 

 abundance of game there had made excellent marksmen of 

 both sides, they were almost always very short and deadly. 

 On one occasion two of us were scouting in the neutral 

 ground* and after a long and fatiguing march had stopped 

 to rest by the side of a trail. Being still far from the Indian 

 encampment we did not consider the neighborhood very dau- 

 gerous. and had taken no special precautions although we 

 were far from being noisy, when a slight rustling off in the 

 narrow trail ahead of us put us both on the alert. We had 

 barely time to cock our rifles when the Indians, evidently 

 scouts like ourselves, appeared in full view walking one tie- 

 hind the other, and only a few yards from us. Quick as a 

 flash it occurred to me that my panlner would be likely to 

 take the one in front and without a moment's hesitation I 

 fired at the other. Our rifles cracked as one report, and both 

 Indians (bopped dead in their tracks." 



I had become so interested in Wilson's narrative, albeit it 

 was only drawn out by persistent questioning, that I almost 

 forgot What we were there for. The chivalrous conduct of 

 Chief John, who must not be confounded with Capt Jack, 

 the Modoc chief, who flourished at least two decades later, 

 was so different from that of most of the various tribes 

 with whom I had been personally acquainted, that it re- 

 minded me more of the Sultan Saladin than it did of the 



