The Passing of Our Mountain Meadows. 41 



in enormously increased surface to the warm, dry cur- 

 rents of air above the immediate surface of the ground. 

 Many of these spindHng lodgepole pines die after a few 

 years; the whole thicket is rather easily blown down or 

 lodged by a severe storm, and in the event of fire it is 

 likely to succumb easily and remain a mass of dead and 

 twisted stalks for the next fire to consume. The dry 

 porous soil, which was before a mass of moist peat, is 

 consumed in the first burning over and is good for nothing 

 for many years. It may come about that a few sturdy 

 trees outgrow and kill the rest, so that in time a fairly 

 good stand of strong timber results. But even should 

 this take place the original meadow was of far greater 

 value than the resulting dry tamarack flat. The meadow 

 is a much more efiicient conserver of excess water than is 

 the grove of trees. Its soil is a sponge, soaking up quan- 

 tities of water as the snow melts, and gradually deliver- 

 ing it to the rill that trickles from its lower edge. A 

 brooklet rising in a chain of such little meadows is 

 almost sure to preserve its flow throughout the season. 

 Conservation of our water therefore, as well as preserva- 

 tion of our mountains' charms, demands that the meadows 

 of the valley bottoms and about the sources of the streams 

 be preserved as carefully as the timber on the valley walls 

 and ridges. 



A number of remedies occur to one. Perhaps the best 

 would be the gradual grazing again of the Park by sheep 

 — allowing the sheep to occupy successive portions of the 

 reserve in successive years. A portion of the Park would 

 thus each year be practically closed to campers with pack 

 animals, though it need not be a large portion. Again, 

 our forest rangers, armed with brush-scythes and axes, 

 could do much toward clearing out the young growth 

 from the edges of the meadows. To cover the entire 

 Park once in five years would be no small task. It should 

 be undertaken, however, at once, for each year increases 

 amazingly the size and number of the trees on the skirm- 

 ish line. We have already lost some of the smaller 



