A paper on forestry interests

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| REPORT OF THE SECRETARY, 1898}

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OF THE

ORDGON STATE BOARD OF HORTICULTUR

SALEM, OREGON:
W. H. LEEDS, STATE PRINTER.
1898.

ON ‘
Forestry and Arid Land Interests.

AY PAPER

ON

FORESTRY INTHRESTS

HON. JOHN MINTO

SALEM, OREGON:
W. H. LEEDS, STATE PRINTER,
1898.

FORESTRY INTERESTS.

Mr. President and Members of the Board :—

Since responding to your request in April last to write out my views on
the subject of Forestry, I have, as you authorized, become a member of the
American Forestry Association, and from its publications and others from
the division of forestry of the United States department of agriculture,
and from Hon. Binger Hermann, Commissioner of the General Land
Office, I have secured valuable information on the present status of the
national forest policy, in which the American Forestry Association seems
to be an impelling and guiding influence.

The American Forestry Association is a voluntary body. Its member-
ship roll contains six hundred and ninety names, sixty-eight being females;
and three hundred and seventy-one—a clean majority—are residents of
New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the District of
Columbia, fifty claiming residence in Washington City. It is, I believe,
reasonable to suppose that the large majority of the members of this body
are educated people—idealists on the subject of forestry. It is not deemed
unreasonable to assume that the fifty members located in Washington are
(in addition to being well informed) either in the employ of the National
Government, or wishing to be so. The organization is so constituted that a
few active members can shape the course of the association and become a
powerful influence in framing the policy of the government relative to the
disposal of forest lands. Take B. E. Fernow’s position as illustration: He
is chairman of its executive committee—three being a quorum; a member
of its directors, four being a quorum. [And fifteen is a quorum of the as-
sociation.] He is also chief of the division of forestry, which gives him a
great personal influence. By the report of its executive committee, read by
Mr. Fernow, February 5, 1897, we are informed that it secured the appoint-
ment of a committee of the National Academy of Sciences ‘‘by inducing the
then Secretary of the Interior (Hon. Hoke Smith) to ask the advice of that
learned body”’ as to the proper steps to be taken with reference to the pub-
lic timber lands; that an appropriation of $25,000 was readily secured to
pay its expenses; that ‘‘it was not expected its recommendations would be
essentially or strikingly different from those made and advocated by the
association,’ that it was hoped ‘‘ the weight of the opinion of the eminent
men of the committee, so secured, and the body from which the committee
was selected—being the legally constituted advisor of the government in
matters scientific—weuld do much to arouse more general public interest

ee)
.

and to secure the passage of desired legislation.”” In the same report the
committee mentions that ‘‘it passed and directed to congress and the execu-
tive, resolutions protesting against the modification of the Cascade range
forest reserve, which modification the people of Oregon had petitioned for.”’

The report of the executive committe of the American Forestry Asso-
ciation was read at its meeting on February 5th. That of the committee
whose appointment it secured from the Academy of Sciences, by the help
of one or more competent clerks of the general land office detailed by Sec-
retary Francis to assist in its preparation, had been ‘‘ completed and sub-
mitted about February Ist.’? It recommended thirteen additional forest
reserves, of an aggregate area of 21,379,840 acres. The recommendation
was adopted and proclaimed on February 22, 1897, without reference to the
representatives of the states most directly interested or the conditions of their
admission as political communities, in plain contravention of some impor-
tant provisions. The report is introduced by alluding to experiments now
under process by Gustave Wex, an eminent engineer having charge of im-
provements on the river Danube, giving gauges recorded as to the high and
low water marks of ten rivers having their sources in central Europe. As
the examinations are incomplete, they are inconclusive as to central Europe,
and constitute simply an introduction to the report, which seems to avoid
scientific demonstration, to deal in assumption of facts and aspersions of
industries in Oregon which cannot be truthfully applied to the natural
conditions existing in this state, nor to the actions of its citizens.

Happily, the report shows such a lack of statesmanship that it caused
a halt in the movement of the policy which thus seems to have been initi-
ated by the Forestry Association, the general objects of which are certainly
worthy and very important where timber is needed. The wording of the
report of the committee to the Academy of Sciences is such, as to assertions
made and language used, as to create the suspicion that the committee
trusted too much to the clerk or clerks the secretary of the interior placed
to their assistance. Assertions of fact are made and expressions used rela-
tive to sheep and sheep husbandry that may be passed over as emanating
from an appointee of an appointee of President Cleveland. It is not possi-
ble to believe such assertions and expressions to be the composition of any
member of a body selected from the American Academy of Sciences, and
the letter of Professor Sargent, in appendix a@ of the report, is so superior
as to make it almost certain the members ‘‘signed a report none of them
would have written.’’ The tenure of the report is so abusive of sheep and
sheep owners as to create the conviction that it is the product of personal
animosity, as it is but a refined echo of the western cowboy’s abuse of sheep
and sheep owners—his successful contestants for grass in the range coun-
try. The effect of this part of the report will be to increase and encourage
animosities which have caused the outrages against law and justice that

[5]

have been committed against flock owners and their flocks in every range
state. It is not intended to claim that sheep men are not sometimes ag-
gressers in these troubles: they are not angels.

The use of the word ‘‘nomadie,”’ as defining this mode of sheep-keep-
ing, is calculated to give a false conception of the pursuit. The owners are
not ‘‘ nomads,’’ nor are their flocks, indeed. The former have their settled
homes in the dry pastoral regions of the range states—are themselves the
equals of other men engaged in developing their localities, both in public
spirit and private enterprise. This fact can be proved by looking at the de-
velopment of a country much more closely resembling that claimed to have
been examined by the committee than does that of central Europe — Aus-
tralasia. But Australia, and the lessons to be derived from Australia’s en-
terprise, in the conservation of scant water supply, its records of rainfall, its
experiences of the encroachment of ‘‘ pine scrub’’ upon sheep and eattle
ranges, the greater success of the former on driest ranges as compared with
the latter, has received no notice from this intelligent committee. Why?
It would seem as though the work was already cut out for this respectable
committee—as a stalking horse to the forestry association ; and it came
very near telling by whom, when it follows John Muir and B. E. Fernow
in holding up to the secretary of the interior, and through him to the presi-
dent of the United States, the examples of the imperial governments of
Germany, Russia and British rule in India in regard to forestry ; as though
the citizenship of the United States were on the same level as the laboring
populations of those countries, and there were no agreement between the
states and the nation in the way of its recommendations.

The committee recommends the use of the army to guard these reserves,
now aggregating nearly forty million acres, needed, as it claims, for the
preservation of the water supply in the dry interior; and as a means of
making money where the best timber is and water is not needed, as in the
Olympic range in Washington. It recommends the exclusion of sheep
from pasturage within these reservations, as destroyers of the forest and
desolators of the plains. The herders are singled out as incendiaries of for-
ests. The major reasons for its recommendations are that forests protect
the sources of streams in mountain and highland districts, by preserving
the snow from melting and impeding the percolation of melted snow or
rain from reaching the valleys below. My observation teaches me that
mountains and highlands are the attracting causes of precipitation, and
trees and brushwood are effects of this precipitation ; that all other things
being equal, snow melts first in belts of timber or brush, partly because the
trees and brush break up the snow when falling and partly because of the
influence of color on solar rays, dark objects absorbing, white, reflecting
heat. The bulletin ( No. 38) of the experiment station of the University of
Missouri is now sending out the result of color on peach trees, showing that

[64

the simple act of whitewashing this sensitive tree delayed the swelling of
the buds twenty-two days later than the unwhitened. This accords with
my observations on the Cascade range, where it is rare to find a patch of
snow within the timber after the middle of July, and not then near the
trees or brush. Later than that snow is on open ground ; generally where
it has been laid by drifting. These snow banks on open land, and water
from springs in valleys below, are the sources of rivers after the middle of
July.

Congress, in passing the sundry civil expense bill, June 4, 1897, provided
for the survey of the forest reserves, and empowered the president to revoke,
modify or suspend all such executive orders or proclamations, or any part
thereof, from time to time, as he shall deem best for the public interests;
and suspended the proclamation of February 22, 1897, as to reserves in Wy-
oming, Utah, Montana, Washington, Idaho and South Dakota, till Mareh 1,
1898. This action has had the result of causing the departments of the in-
terior and of agriculture to send out special agents to collect information
on the interests involved. Mr, F. V. Coville, botanist of the department
of agriculture, visited this office with a letter of introduction from Hon.
Binger Hermann, asking such aid as I could give him as a special agent of
the department of agriculture, sent to Oregon with a view of studying and
reporting upon the subject of sheep grazing within the forest reserves. I
gave him all the aid I could and a general letter of introduction to such
stockmen as he should meet on his proposed route northward from Klamath
Falls on the summit and eastern slope of the Cascade range.

In a letter from Washington, acknowledging my letter was a service to
him, he expresses the belief that he had gathered facts which would solve
the grazing question.

A letter from Edwin F. Smith, statistical agent of the department of
agriculture, asking the number of sheep and value of grazing on the Cas-
cade range and foot-hills, was received by Hon. H. E. Dosch, of the first
district, who turned it over to me for answer. Based on the number of
sheep assessed in Wasco, Sherman, Crook, Lake and Klamath counties in
1896, and estimating the number of lambs not assessed, I count the total
707,667 head, the wool yield of which I estimate at 4,953,669 pounds, worth
in the home market $495,366.90, all of which I credit to summer grazing,
leaving the mutton and lambs to the credit of winter care; but I think the
benefit of the sheep being taken off the plains in summer is worth fully as
much to other stock interests — horses and cattle—and to the wintering of
sheep, so that the total value would be in round numbers $1,000,000 an-
uually. Only one third of these sheep as yet go within the bounds of the
reserves as laid, but the number is increasing as the flock-owners increase
and improve their provisions for the winter keep. There is little or no
lumber taken from the reservations. The provision for winter feed is the

bog

engrossing summer work of the east Oregon flock-owner, and his success in
that is the measure of his success in his pursuit. In this he has the advant-
age of the range cattle owner, as he has his flocks always under control,
which is well nigh impossible with cattle or horses. Cattle, horses and fat
sheep are generally shipped to markets east of the Rockies by rail, but
sheep designed for sale as breeders for the ranges of Wyoming or the
Dakotas, or feeders for the corn lands of Nebraska, Kansas, or adjoining
states, are driven on foot, preferably on the highest lands on the route taken
—both food and water and avoidance of local interests being considered.
The Forestry committee, alluding to these interests, says:

‘Great flocks are wintered in the sheltered canyons of Snake river, and
then, spreading through eastern Oregon, have destroyed the herbage of the
valleys and threatened the forests on its mountain ranges. Sheep raised in
eastern Oregon and Washington are driven every summer across Idaho and
Wy>ming to markets in Nebraska and Dakota, eating bare as they go and
carrying ruin in their path. In every western state and territory nomadic
sheep men are dreaded and despised. Year after year, however, they con-
tinue their depredations. The actual loss this industry inflicts on the coun-
try annually, in thousands of acres of burnt timber and in ruined pasture
lands, is undoubtedly large, although insignificant in comparison with its
effects on the future of mountain forests, the flow of streams and the agri-
cultural possibilities of their valleys.”

This extract contains the chief points of the committee’s conclusions.
This business of marketing sheep from west of the Rockies is in the hands
of middle-men, who pay for any accommodations they receive from resi-
dents of the country they cross. The picture of destruction is wholly
imaginary, both as to the threatening of the forests and the ruin of pas-
tures. I here insert an extract from a letter received from Commissioner
Dosch, who has recently visited the Snake river canyons. He says:

‘““As you know, [ have just returned from a trip to Montana and inci-
dentally paid a visit to friends in Utah, Idaho, and Oregon, along the
Snake river, examining many commercial and private orchards, all under
irrigation. I have come to the conclusion, notwithstanding the fearful
heat, for it ranged from 108° to 111° in the shade to 133° in the sun in the
orchards, agriculture and horticulture is much more satisfactory where one
controls the water than to depend on the heavens for it, coming, as it does,
at unseasonable times, which is not the case in irrigated districts. I have
not seen finer kept orchards, nor more thrifty growing trees, nor laden
with finer, larger peaches, pears, prunes and apples, than those very or-
chards along Snake river, which were but a few years ago barren wastes
covered with sage brush and jackrabbits. The grain fields are simply im-
mense, and as to alfalfa for hay it is beyond belief—three to four cuttings
per year, averaging seven tons for the year. If our southern Oregon friends

[84

would take lessons from these Snake river people, they would simply have
a paradise.’’

In amore recent letter Mr. Dosch tells me of one firm near Ontario
who had 2,000 tons of alfalfa hay, who had just given an order for 2,000
calves to be purchased in the Willamette valley at $8.25 per head. Any
reasonable business man knows that this transmountain trade in cattle and
sheep is one of advantage to breeder, middleman and feed-seller; and
so far as the sheep are concerned they are not ‘‘hoofed locusts’’ but the
golden hoofed bearers of the golden fleece, eating a greater variety of the
bitter weeds of the hot plain, and by their owners carrying gold to the
owners of hay in the Snake river and other canyons, when their welfare
demands such purchase. They do not eat coniferous trees at any stage of
growth, and they lessen the danger of forest fires where they feed. This is
the statement of unprejudiced men, from central California, to northern
British Columbia on the Pacific coast. In the consular reports from Aus-
tralia, which tell of sheep being destroyed in fires of dry grass and timber
combined, there is not a single charge made against sheep keepers as incen-
diaries.

Among those who have been here this past summer to estimate the
reasons for the people of Oregon desiring the reduction of the Cascade
forest reserve, was Mr. B. E. Fernow, to whom allusions have been made.
If his remarks relative to the Cascade reserve were correctly reported in the
Oregonian of September 9th, it ought not to be hard to convince him the
people of Oregon are right in their desire for its reduction. They, like the
people of many other states, are very willing to have some of the most in-
teresting mountains included in reserve parks. He ascended the bases of
Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson and made an estimate of the reserves as a
timber resource. To reach the latter mountain he passed through a commu-
nity of a larger number of citizens than constitutes the American Forestry
Association, whose families are supported by lumbering interests inside the
reservation. He is reported as saying: ‘There is not much, although
some, good marketable material on the Cascade and Bull Run reserves, but
the larger part of the great reserve, I am inclined to think, comprises
Alpine forest of hemlock and firs, which does not furnish material at pres-
ent marketable. or else is burnt up. Although the reserved area appears
large, its useful contents are but scanty. You may safely halve the area as
far as serviceable timber is concerned.’’ This isa remarkably good estimate
of the eastern half of it, but Mr. F. was deceived as to the west half by
seeing only the high ridges, whereon the timber is always thin and inferior
from natural causes — foremost of which is lack of moisture at its roots; next,
the injurious influence of the wind.

Mr. F. proceeds: ‘‘I have not heard a single good reason against the
reserve. ‘The reasons usually can be sifted down to some small speculative

[9]

interest, that is supposedly sacrificed to the greater communal interest.
The poor man who has taken up a homestead in the woods — not to make
a home, but to speculate with the timber on the 160 acres — feels injured
because his speculation may not pan out; the sheep herder feels injured be-
cause he loses the free range to which he had hardly any right before, and
which he did his best to destroy by his reckless manner of using it; a third
class is formed by those who consider the reservation policy one imposed
upon western communities by eastern cranks, ignorant of western condi-
tions. These are to be pitied for their lack of perception that this is one
country with one interest, knowing no east and no west.’’ In this, Mr.
Fernow charges bad faith and low motives to the ‘‘poor man;’’ selfish,
reckless incendiarism against the sheep herder, and narrow, sectional jeal-
ousy against those who oppose the reserve policy. This is ‘‘one country,”’
but there are supposed to be about seventy millions of personal interests
covered by its constitution. There are some forty community interests leg-
ally formed, which should not be lightly infringed. The citizenship of the
fourteen states and territories which have large amounts of public lands
within their bounds, and of which they have heretofore been deemed the
local guardians under the terms of their admission to the union, preserves
a full average share of pride in the fact that this isa government ‘of the
people, by the people, and for the people,’’ which secures to the poorest cit-
izen the ownership of himself, and may be said to invite him, by the home-
stead law, to the ownership of a home. As one of these, the writer claims
the right to be heard in regard to this reserve policy, as it bears upon the
interests and seems to threaten the liberities of citizens of Oregon, for rea-
sons believed to be erroneously based.

With due respect for the members of the Forestry Association and the
committee it secured to aid its objects, so far as these are to cultivate a
public spirit to foster silvia culture where it is needed and to disseminate
information to that end, I yet must (from more than fifty years acquaintance
with conditions in Oregon, half of which has been such as to make me
familiar with the natural phenomena of the Cascade mountains and the
effect of man’s usage upon them ) dissent almost in toto from the assump-
tions of the committee and the derogatory charges made against sheep,
their herders or their owners. I owe to the nation to stand for the truth
on this subject in all its phases, general as to forests and conservation of
water supply, and particular as to sheep husbandry and its influence upon
the growth of conifers (the only forest trees of the Cascade range and in-
terior mountains involved in this policy, except a little cottonwood and
aspen.)

For two years prior to March 15, 1893, I was in the employ of the
United States department of agriculture, to examine and report upon the
conditions of sheep husbandry in the states of California, Oregon and

[ 10 |

>
Washington. The condensed report is published in the special report on
the sheep industry of the United States, bureau of industry, 1892. Ten
letters of California sheep growers are therein quoted, all protesting against
the charges of setting out forest fires by sheep herders. They are samples
of scores of letters of the same tenure, from which I gathered that, unless
fires were started designedly by the basque herdsmen ( who were really
nomadic in their methods and had largely superseded the Americans in
southern California) the charge was untrue against the sheep industry in
that state. It never had a particle of truth in it as to the state of Oregon,
so far as I know, nor in Washington. In British Columbia, the most re-
cent government reports contain thirty-seven answers, giving causes of
forest fires. Not one mentions the sheep industry as being the cause, yet
there, as in western Washington and Oregon, the clearing of thinly set
timber lands for homes, in which sheep can be utilized to some extent, is
increasing as population increases.

Mr. Fernow is quoted as saying that the smoke he found an annoyance
in Oregon will deter tourists from visiting this state. Well, Oregon asa
a community has not yet come down to the show business. The smoke is
not the evidence of forest fires by incendiaries. It is in the main evidence
of burnt offerings to nature’s God by the home builders of western Oregon
aud Washington, who believe that:

‘‘To make a happy fireside clime
For weans and wife,

Is the true pathos, and sublime,
Of human life.’’

Sometimes fires get beyond the control of homebuilders, though not
often. Carelessness of summer vacationists, hunters, berry-pickers, travel-
ers through unsettled mountain timber districts, and road makers, is the
most common cause of forest fires. The Hon. D. P. Thompson, who has
had great experience in the timber lands of Oregon as a surveyor, believes
he has knowledge of two instances where fires occurred spontaneously,
probably by the rays of sunlight shining through clear turpentine exuda-
tions. This may account for some fires on the east slopes of the Cascade
range where the yellow pine exudes turpentine very freely. But it must
not be forgotton that the Warm Springs Indian reserve is bounded on the
west by the summit, and the Indians have the rights of hunting and graz-
ing their ponies on the entire range, to which many of them resort every
season, when (by custom from which they see no reason to desist ) they re-
new the old berry patches and coarse grasses of the dry lake beds by fires.

I would estimate seventy-five per cent. of the smoke obscuring the
views of the September visitor in Oregon or Washington as the result of
land-clearing for homes. The employment by the state of five or six active
young men from the first of July to the last of October of each year would

[ 11]

soon stop four fifths of the fires resulting from carelessness west of the sum-
mit of the Cascade range. They are very rare now on the east side, and
though ten years ago they were more frequent, they never were destructive
of valuable timber, because the grasses, even when dried into hay, were
always light within the timber belts. Pasturage of stock is a protection
there, as fifty year’s experience has proved that summer grazing prevents
dry grass fires in western Oregon and Washington. If it were desirable to
conserve the forest growth it could be done by selling the land, or leasing
it, on defined conditions, as is done in the Australian colonies, where men
of weight and influence are not in the habit of making war upon the most
important industry possible in a country closely resembling these range
states; wherein there are yet (although grants, reservations and private
ownerships cover nearly all the water courses ) exclusive of Texas, 534,000,-
000 acres of public lands, of which Oregon has 35,892,318 acres. Give the
people of those dry plains the wise and liberal inducements and security in
their investments which have been made for sheep, cattle or horse breeding
in Australia; and in addition to sheep husbandry already established, 400,-
000,000 acres of those dry pasture lands will become a field of production
which will feed the looms of the nation, without the necessity of importing
a pound of wool, and in addition will supply lamb and mutton to the peo-
ple.

Senator Warren, of Wyoming, in a paper in The Illustrated American,
estimates the numbers of livestock now feeding in the arid land states, and
ranging chiefly on the public lands, as follows: Cattle, 14,000,000; sheep,
24,000,000 ; horses, 2,000,000; maules, 50,000. Under our existing land sys-
tem, the contest for range privileges to which no man has an exclusive
right leads to rivalry and strife which not infrequently culminate in law-
lessness and bloodshed. Give leases to applicants on nominal terms, or sell,
under conditions, at very low rates, securing to those making permanent
improvements in either case the appraised value of such improvements,
whether on the plains, parched and dry, or on the grassy highlands, which
are a haven of comfort for man and beast in the summer months. From all
the range country at elevations producing the pine trees, timber and water
will be carried to and conserved on the plains, and timber preserved on the
mountains by local energies, guided and impelled by personal and local in-
terests. Double the number of cattle, sheep and horses will be kept, and bet-
ter kept than now ; and lands now deemed not worth the purchase wil! fur-
nish homes for thousands and tens of thousands of happy people —lands on
which yet the wood growth is sage brush and the permanent live stock,
jack-rabbits. The lease and conditional sale system in use in Australasia
induced the change from loose herding to the Paddock system of keeping
stock, and one third more stock is better kept, and at less cost, it is claimed,
on the same area of land than under the former method. What Aus-
tralians can do, Americans can do.

[ 12

In the national report on sheep, to which I have referred, will be found
a letter of J. Parker Whitney, another kind of Boston man, who sent his
brother to Australia in 1855 and bought 350 such sheep, at $50.00 per head.
He succeeded in getting 120 of them to California, which he subsequently
estimated as paying him $1,000,000. They induced him to buy 20,000 acres
of the then cheap land in Placer county, California, which he was selling
in small parcels in 1892 at $150 to $300 per acre, for peach orchards. This
was near Roeklin, from which district he was the first man to send a train
load of peaches east of the Rockies, and where I saw the Central Pacific
railroad company, and private parties clearing lands of the pine and other
serub which had grown up on closely grazed lands within the past twenty-
five years, just as it has done in Western Oregon.

The estimated area of forest land in Oregon has been considered at
about 16,000,000 acres in the entire state. Dr. J. R. Cardwell, commissioner
at large of the State Board of Horticulture, considering the economical
values of the coniferous growth of commercial value, estimated it at 16,000
square miles, or 10,000,000 acres, in 1893. This estimate Mr. A. W. Ham-
mond, of Wimer, Oregon, vice-president of the American Forestry Asso-
ciation, adopted in his report to that body in 1896. He puts ‘the merchant-
able timber on the latter area at 400,000,000,000 feet, board measure.’”? He
says: ‘‘The annual out-put is now estimated at about 200,000,000 feet ; but
even this amount must be insignificant in comparison with the amount an-
nually decaying and in a sense going to waste in the forests through natural
causes. In many places, even about the settlements, one will see numbers
of the very largest and handsomest pine trees—in every respect magnifi-
cent specimens — 200 to 250 years old and more, dead and dying, that must
go to waste because of the entire absence of means of converting them into
lumber.

‘The annual output, in fact, represents an amount equal to about 10 per
cent. only of the annual growth. Whence it follows (if the forest remains
stationary ) that an amount equal to 90 per cent. of this new growth is an-
nually going to waste. This means, in other words, that if the mature
timber could be culled annually from the forests of this state, they could
be made to yield annually about 2,000,000,000 feet, board measurement,
without detriment.”’

I quote a little farther from Mr. Hammond to show how impractical
a good man can be. He says: ‘‘In the opinion of the writer, what is
most needed here just now is, first, some efficient regulation in regard to
forest fires; second, proper measures to prevent the gobbling up of large
tracts of the most valuable portions of forests by private corporations where
lumbering operations are liable to be carried on without reference to future
needs or to future conditions of the country. The general sentiment here
is yet far from being sufficiently alive on this important subject. So many

[ 13 ]

interests would like to share in the general prosperity that would follow
the working on any adequate scale of the great forests of this state, that
public sentiment, it is only too well feared, would be in sympathy with any
movement of that kind, and the future needs or the future condition of the
country would receive no attention except at the hands of a few.”’

How restful the mental condition of a man must be who can contem-
plate 1,800,000,000 feet of lumber wasting annually for lack of users, yet let
the waste ( which is one hundred fold more than annual destruction by for-
est fires) go on for fear of over-cutting in a country like this. The writer
greatly prefers to meet present human interests, and is very glad to believe
the people of Oregon are of the same mind in very large majority. They
are proving this by the very great increase in the lumber cut since Mr.
Hammond wrote down his estimates and his fears.

The enterprise of the managers of the Oregonian has given us the lum-
ber cut of 1897. Believing they will be interesting reading to ideal foresters
and friends of forestry for its uses to humanity, I insert two papers relative
to the subject from the Daily Oregonian of January 1, 1898:

LUMBER CUT.

‘The saw mills of Oregon cut 549,823,179 feet of lumber last year. By
counties the cut was:

Bik Cres ee ees noo eee eee ae ae ee he eee eee $ 30,000, 000
BGM bOI same opeee ae ea as pe re ee a et ee 1, 100, 000
Clackamaesie== = -22. 2 oss so) ee ee a 4,000, 000
Clatsop aaa a a ee ee hs Se se ee Pees See 8 28, 000, 000
Colkurn bie; Sos. 3b oa alts Se oe ee Ns Se ee ee ee 18, 176, 000
Coogee = psa Senter eh RN SEL LS ok Me 22, 000, 000
CroOkia2 noe Soa se ee os So ee a on ons oe ee ee 1, 500, 000
@utpmyerts20 2) =. BOSS - SSE Sloe ot Sk Se A ae ee ee 400, 000
Douglas qo oases es as ee ee a a ee 35, 000, 000
(Get earn 2h a a ee es ae ee ee 1, 000, 000
6 30 a we ee ee eee 400, 000
Harneye ns asso ee eee es es ee eae 2, 000, 000
CK SON 5 ao a ee 27, 500, 000
JOSODNIN GS os soos. ae oe eee ea Ss se 15, 600, 000
Klamath: . 202 cs se oencaasacsancdn sae sowe meee oe oe ee Se See 22, 000, 000
Oy 22 eae eee Ch hte. ees Phys See ea ee rece eekly Ee 900, 000
Wane 22262 es SS See a ae er ee 15, 000, 000
Thin Colne oxo ss ooo saa ee at as eee eee eee 2, 000, 000
DUpielyay cae Soe CS SA READ eS te RE ee ee eee ee eer en ee 20, 000, 000
RUE 1H 92) 5) ee aaa tee a ae Ee EERE a ee A eee ee ee SEE, 500, 000
IM eurel O10 eee ke Sa od ee ee ee 2, 455, 000
MOM O Win sean a oe owen en eo amen en ea ae ie eee 850, 000
Miuktnomrah #22 2225 2258s ot es AS oe ee ae ee 130, 000, 000
LEO) 28 Ss a Oe 2 a ee 2 ee Te een pen Se Meee 7,415, 879
SSG WM oe ne a nn aw ne ae ae eS
APM am OO kes. oot a! So one ae oer eee sean one hon ae seen See 22, 000, 000
Wimatinie ie 2 uss 22 i She 2k 2 Be ek Se ee ee ees 100, 000
Deetagne weet. ete Ai oy gue ie ee ee al ell 24, 500, 000
WialllO Wale ta seen oe ae eS a eee oe ka ee a eee 926, 000
Waseot. Si LtSst> ea ees oe a oe ee oh ask t 2, 500, 000
Washinetdnis)..2 2 thet seg eee eo ee, 12, 000, 000

SYA Ce eet Wrath tA Doe oN ene, gee Oe wed at, Se Aa pert 600, 000

(id),

“The mills of Multnomah county cut 130,000,000 feet, valued at $1,040,-
000, an average of $8 per thousand. The same average applied to other
counties, brings the value of the cut in the state to $4,398,585.48.

“Oregon’s timber supply is practically inexhaustible. The great belt,
comprising the counties of Clatsop, Columbia, Washington and Tillamook,
contains, as is set forth in another part of this paper, approximately 56,-
000,000,000 feet of standing timber. Last year the lumber cut in the four
counties just named was about 80,176,000 feet. At that rate it will take
nearly 700 years to exhaust the standing timber in the belt.

“Multnomah county cuts more lumber than any other county on the
Pacific coast. Portland cuts more lumber than any other city on the Pa-
cific coast. She leads the Pacific northwest in lumber as she leads it in
every other commodity. As Portland is situated close to the world’s great-
est timber belt, there is no likelihood that she ever will lose her position as
the greatest lumber-manufacturing city on the Pacific coast. Develop-
ment of the great belt, which must take place within the next ten years,
will make Portland the greatest lumber-manufacturing city in the world.’’

THE WORLD’S GREATEST TIMBER BELT.
| Oregonian, January 1, 1898.]

The greatest timber belt in the world is in the counties of Clatsop,
Washington, Columbia and Tillamook, in Northwestern Oregon. In the
four counties there are 1,884,960 acres, containing 56,149,200,000 feet of tim-
ber. The standing timber is worth on the average 50 cents per 1000 feet,
board measure, or $28,074,600. Manufactured into rough lumber, it is worth,
at the rate of $7 per 1000, the enormous sum of $393,017,400.

Clatsop county has about 530,000 acres of timber land, averaging 35,-
000 feet per acre, making a total of 18,550,000,000 feet.

Tillamook county has about 700,000 acres, which will average 35,000 feet
to the acre, making a totoal of 24,500,000,000 feet.

Washington county has about 264,960 acres, which will average 20,000
feet to the acre, making a total of 5,299,900,000 feet.

Columbia county has about 390,000 acres, which will average 20,000 feet
to the acre, making a total of 7,800,000,000 feet.

The foregoing totals of 1,884,960 acres of timber land and 56,149,200,000
feet of standing timber are conservative. ‘The majority of people who fig-
ure on Oregon’s available timber supply base their calculations on an
average of 40,000 feet per acre. The average value of 50 cents per 1,000 feet
for standing timber is reasonable. Present prices of stumpage in the Ore-
gon timber belt is from 50 cents to $1 per 1,000. Government forestry ex-
perts have placed the average for Oregon at 62 cents per 1,000 feet.

The principal rivers in the timber belt are the Nehalem, the Wilson,
and the Trask. Alongthe Nehalem are 570,300 acres, averaging 40,000 feet,
making a total of 22,812,000,000 feet. Along the Wilson are 111,640 acres

[ 15 }

averaging 35,000 feet, making a total of 3,907,400,000 feet. Along the Trask
are 102,400 acres, averaging 40,000 feet, making a total of 3,584,000,000 feet.

The timber in the belt consists of fir, ceda, hemlock, spruce and larch.
The fir is the genuine yellow or Douglas fir. It constitutes 8 per cent. of
the entire growth. Timber in the belt is less subject to fire than timber in
any section in Oregon. This is because the lands slope toward the ocean,
and the heavy fogs which prevail in the summer keep tbe leaves and under-
brush so damp that fires cannot take hold.

Michigan and Wisconsin lumbermen of large capital own immense
bodies of timber land in the belt.

This showing of forest wealth in the five counties in the north-west
corner of the state of Oregon will be agreeable reading for her citizens, and
a study of the question of natural supply of the entire state will lead to en-
dorsement of the words of the Oregonian that it is ‘‘ practically inexhaust-
ible”? if our fellow citizens of the American Forestry Association can be
persuaded to refrain from such methods of procuring legislation affecting
their fellow citizens on this side of the continent—the conditions of whom
they cannot understand sufficiently to justify their meddling, by open ac-
tion or secret intrigue, obstructive of the most economical mode of harvest-
ing this great source of natural wealth. Information derived from the
assessor of Clatsop county enables me to confirm the statement of the Ore-
gonian, that ‘ Michigan and Wisconsin lumber firms of large capital own
immense bodies of timber in this belt. But these companies are not oper-
ating the large and costly harvesting agencies in their own timber. Why?
Because the +Wilson bill gave the lumber market of the world to Canada,
and the wool market of the world to Australia, and these men of Michigan
and Wisconsin were compelled either to let their machinery rust in idle-
ness or set it up near the line of the Canadian railway, and it has been em-
ployed there during the past four years, while the waste of decay has been
going on in the woods of Oregon. On the other hand, the development of
Oregon’s portion of the great inland empire has been obstructed by the
policy alluded to and the insidious methods of the American Forestry Asso-
ciation, as I have shown.

The Oregonian’s tables show the lumber cut of the five northwestern
counties of the state to be 210,176,000 feet; that of the five grazing counties
of Crook, Grant, Harney, Lake, and Malheur, 5,200,000 feet. The nation
has given about 2,400,000 acres of the public lands to induce the construc-
tion of so-called military roads into these counties. Thirty-seven years ago
families of the pioneer class of citizens (whose early settlement of Oregon
and Washington gave the nation its most important title of occupancy to
half of the then Oregon territory) began to settle within the boundary of
these five counties, making investments in full faith that the liberal policy

[ 16 }

which had caused the construction of these roads would be continued, and
the country be developed. There they have lived. Their families have in-
creased, but many of the younger generation, on coming to maturity, have
left the isolation of the pastoral life behind them, and have left many re-
maining who would follow their example if they could find purchasers for
their properties. They have endured the hardships that attend the occupa-
tion of raising cattle, horses, and sheep in that region, and the dangers in-
separable from the contiguity of the native race. There is no longer
necessity for the military roads by which to give succor there against In-
dian uprisings. ‘he projected Oregon Central and EKastern Railway (the
construction of which began on a financial basis furnished by two military
road grants) is impeded by the Cascade forest reserve. This road, if com-
pleted to the east line of the state, would answer more than all the purposes
of the military roads for national uses; as troops hereafter will be collected
in these range states of the interior and brought to the Pacific shores, where
the emergencies demanding military power are most likely to arise. Mean-
while the most important aid to an increase of homes in the central part
of the state of Oregon, and eastward and southward of that region, is a
railroad through that country, so that Jumber for homes and fencing ma-
terial, and for irrigation projects, can be distributed with greatest economy.
In the valley and pass by which this line of railroad is now more than half
way across the Cascade range there are more than one hundred resident
homesteaders who were located within the limits of the forest reserve be-
fore it was proclaimed. Many of them were stopped in their efforts for im-
provement and development of their homes by the prospect of an unendur-
able isoltaion, the proclamation in effect destroying all hope of the social
surroundings which are the best influences of civilization. To open that
reservation, two townships wide, to free acquirement of the land, under
any reasonable conditions as to harvesting of the timber, would be the best
possible encouragement to those interested in this railroad enterprise which
this forest policy has so far stopped. It would encourage the completion of
the road, the manufacture of lumber through a fine timber belt eighty miles
wide, and give healthful home-supporting opportunity to at least five thou-
sand heads of families; furnish lumber freights, both eastward and west-
ward, to the railroad line, and develop the numerous interests in connection
with this comparatively small opening, for which many people have been
waiting for more than twenty-five years.

If the writer were desirous of suggesting the very best means within
his knowledge of lessening the dangers of the most extensive and destruc-
tive fires possible in the Cascade timber belt, this is the recommendation
we would make: Clear a gap across the range in the quickest and most ju-
dicious way possible. The committee on forestry recorded one undoubted
truth: ‘‘No human agency can stop a western (Oregon) forest fire after it

[17]

has once obtained real headway, until it encounters a natural barrier, is ex-
tinguished by rain, or expires for lack of material.’”? The opening of this
gap is suggested as means of creating an artificial break in the consumable
material, and an interested resident population of guards, which can be
made subjects of legal call for aid as one condition of conveyance of forest
lands from the nation or the state.

Another reason for the foregoing suggestion is the value of the water
power now running unused. For fifty-one miles the North Santiam river,
running down this valley, has an average and very uniform fall of fifty-
one and one-half feet per mile. It is questionable whether there is another
stream in the state which could be so often and so cheaply used in the pro-
duction of force. The very refuse of its forest wealth could be ground into
paper pulp by water-driven machinery. The writer is no machinist, and
knows little of what can now be done with electric force, but sincerely be-
lieves that in this valley there are great opportunities for its cheap manu-
facture and a convenient fieid for its use in harvesting the timber growth
which ought to be here saved from further waste, and as a guard against
possible destructive forest fires. There is also, near the head of this valley,
avery inviting field for fruit growing, dairy farming and apiaries. Twenty
years ago it was estimated there was room for the settlement of 2,000 fami-
lies on open or partially open lands, upon which seedling timber has since
much encroached.

In view of this great waste going on in the forests of Oregon generally ;
in view of the situations described as to forest and arid lands near the cen-
ter of the State, is there any reason for the people of other states to interfere
with the people of Oregon harvesting their timber wealth in their own way,
under such circumstances? Ah! but these Eastern friends say: ‘‘ We look
to the future and the oneness of our country.’’ The Western citizens will
say: ‘‘ Yes, but the oneness will be best maintained by each expending his
public spirit where he knows the conditions.’’ Jet the citizens of New
York continue to enlarge the state’s holdings on the Adirondacks. Let
those in Massachusetts use the abandoned farms in that state for public tim-
ber lots. Let those of New Hampshire follow the example of Mr. Austin
Corbin, who has shown to the world a field of interesting study by collect-
ing 1,000 elk, 150 moose, 1,200 deer, and 85 buffalo, and an indefinite num-
ber of wild swine, all in a forest park of 26,000 acres, to form which he
canceled 375 titles, by purchase at from $1 to $25 per acre, from people who,
we may suppose, find life more pleasant in manufactures or trade of town
or city, or in the pulse-stirring home-building of the West, to which they
are always welcome. In every state there are openings for the public
spirited idealist, or if he does not wish to share his plans with others, there
is the fine example of the founder of Biltmore—an investment in 100,000
acres of southern pine forests, to be managed for its forestry products. There
are openings for others in like enterprises in the New England states.

[ 18 ]

EFFECTS OF FOREST GROWTH ON WATER SUPPLY.

It is not possible for men and women who never saw the effect of irri-
gation to estimate its value under such conditions as Mr. Dosch describes
in the canyons of Snake river, and Dr. Fernow bears witness to having
seen on the Deserts of Arizona (during his examinations of the forests of
that territory, recently published by the American Forestry Association.)

Dr. Fernow notes that ‘‘The broad valley of the Rio Verde, which
carries the drainage from the plateau of Salt river, is capable of agricultural
development to a much greater extent than has been attempted, but, as in
other parts of the territory, this requires systematic storage and utilization
of water. By careful management, the cattle, sheep and goat industry
would, no doubt, be able to use advantageously the large non-irrigable
areas.’”’ This suggestion can be truthfully applied to the whole arid land
country from the Mexican line to British America, and from the summit of
the Cascade range in Oregon, to Western Kansas and Nebraska.

The present flocks and herds, said to number 24,000,000 of sheep and
1,200,000 cattle, in the arid land area could be greatly augmented, and an
amount of additional value gathered from what is now desert that ean hard-
ly be conceived of. It is greatly to be hoped that the departments of
Government will take measures to aid its present development, instead of
creating and guarding solitudes. It is more than twelve years now, since
the writer suggested the use of means to get artisian water onto these arid
lands.

On similar areas the governments of Australia are in advance of ours,
both in the reservation of forests and provisions for and conservation of
water supply. In New South Wales alone, the number of reserves aggre-
gates 15,050, distributed over every county and almost every parish in the
province, in order to meet the needs of the people, ranging from 15 acres
to 74,000 acres in area. Some of them are along the banks of rivers, ex-
tending two chains from the bank, apparently as protection from the flood
wood and debris carried by the streams when in extraordinary flood, as
sometimes occurs there as in some portions of arid America. They are un-
der a local board of control, which tends to cultivate a public spirit—though
sometimes so numerous as to create confusion. The report mentions thirty
miles on one river as being in charge of no less than fourteen boards.
There is no hint in the consular reports of the practical Australians creating
permanent reserves of millions of acres of timber as protection to the flow
of streams. The whole system seems to be managed for immediate practi-
cal development, such as is greatly needed throughout our arid land dis-
tricts, in which there are now settlers who have to use sagebrush for fuel.
From the report of Consul Cameron, of Sydney, New South Wales, the
following is taken: ‘It is worthy of note, the influence of trees is com-
paratively ‘nil’ in this country. During the exceptionally wet year of

[ 19]

1887, on Dinby station, north of Baradine, 408 miles north of Sydney, situ-
ated in a densely timbered country, the mean rainfall was 32°66 inches
against 38°92 at the neighboring station in the open. On the other hand,
in the very dry year of 1888, Dinby figured for 11:73 inches with 15°52
inches at the above stations. Elevation, however, seems to have a benefi-
cial influence on rainfall, as the average of fourteen years at Wollongong,
half a mile from the sea, at a height of sixty-seven feet is 38:84 inches, and
at Cordeaux, near the same place, six miles from the sea, it is 55°53 inches
for seventeen years, at an elevation of about 1,200 feet.””’ The foregoing
extract is given for what it may be worth as indicating whether it is the
presence of the timber which influences precipitation, or elevation, merely,
which has a favorable effect in increasing rainfall. There are other points
in Consul Cameron’s excellent report that I shall call attention to,
namely, the amount of moisture taken up by evaporation by different soils
and situations, but more particularly the difference between sod-covered
soil and bare earth and water surface. The test was made by Mr. H. C.
Russell, B. A. C. M. G. F. R. S., the government astronomer for New
South Wales. The tests were secured by the use of pans eight inches deep,
and surfaces of four square feet and the records made when practicable
through the twelve months of the wettest season recorded, which showed
a mean temperature of 63°1°, the total rainfall was 81°418 inches in one
hundred and eighty four days of the year, on many of which evaporation
did not take place, the water running over the test pans. The total evap-
oration from the square in grasses was 35°960 inches; from the water surface
31-027 inches; from the garden soil, which, though sandy, hardened when
dry, it was 25-476 inches, showing, by a difference of nearly ten and a half
inches, that either the inherent heat of the live grass, the increase of ex-
posed surface by the grass blades, or the sponge-like absorbtion of the bare
earth, made this difference. It is probable all three agencies were operative,
but there is a difference between the grass and the water surfaces. The
grass giving off 4-933 inchess more than the water. This indicates an effect
of absorbtion of heat by the broken surface and color of the grass, and per-
haps a reflection of heat from the surface of the water, an effect I claim as
one reason why a solid snowbank will lie longer in the open air unmelted
than in thick timber or brush near by, an effect that every one familiar
with the mountains can often see. Other influences are present, namely it
is warmer in dense timber in the winter season than in the open, and while
it is cooler in the timber during the daylight in summer when the sun is
shinning; it is warmer within a timber belt on a summer night than in the
open. This is proven by the fact that cold given off from the bodies of
snow during the night in the summer months often causes water to freeze
in the open, when it does not do so in the nearby timber. There is an-
other and very important fact indicated by the difierence of ten and a halt

inches of water evaporation between the grass covered and the bare soil,
during the days of one year on whieh evaporation took place. If the great-
evaporation was caused by the life and color of the grass and the increased
surface its blades offered to the sun’s rays we may reasonably expect the
greatly increased surface of a growing forest will throw off a greater
amount of moisture by evaporation than will a grass surface. The ques-
tion whether this is so or not is most respectfully referred to the eminent
body of scientists to which the forestry committee belongs, and to the na-
tional experiment stations generally. The writer believes science will find
that trees not only extract water from a greater depth of earth than does
grass, but also give off during the growing season much more. The evap-
oration, we see by this table, was nearly thirty-six inches of 81°418 that
fell. Could experiment be brought to the solution of the question, the pre-
diction is ventured that it will prove that trees not only draw much more
water from the soil than grass but that, drawing it from a greater depth of
cooler earth, they scatter a greater coolness from their leaves, and thus pro-
duce the grateful shade and pine-scented breath of the forests we all de-
light in. -

Leaving this subject for the present, I quote again from the consul’s re-
port immediately following the tables I have summarized. He says: ‘In
addition to my previous remarks descriptive of the soil characteristics, it
should be borne in mind that every fleece of wool that is produced takes a
percentage of potash and other fertile matter out of the soil, and that
hitherto nothing has been done to replace these elements. As a conse-
quence, valuable herbage gradually gives out and is replaced by an inferior
output. For instance, pine scrub has seized on thousands of acres in the in-
terior of what was formerly magnificent pastoral land.” 'The italics are
mine. I don’t believe Mr. Cameron has got the true cause, though it may
be so in some thin soils in Australia. Pine scrub and that of yellow fir
' (Douglas spruce) .takes the land in eastern and western Oregon where a
fleece of wool or a pound of flesh never was extracted from the soil by do-
mestic animals.

The consular report from which I have just quoted contains much that
may be useful to the industries of eastern Oregon, which is the western
edge of vast natural pasture lands of the range states, and of which Oregon
yet has nearly thirty millions of acres east of the Cascade range, which, as
yet, are neither reserved nor sold. For the certain development of these
lands to the highest possible use, both timber and water conservation are
necessary under conditions which seem so nearly similar to those in New
South Wales as to make the examples they set us in their methods of great
value, as guides towards improving our own present methods. The report
shows that the natural condition of each district has been closely studied
as to the kind of stock it will best support. Heavy or light horses, heavy

| 21 |

or light cattle, cattle for the dairy, or cattle-breeding for beef—the districts
better adapted to sheep than any of the larger stock,—these eminently prac-
tical people have consulted the genius of each locality and devoted the land
to the purpose for which nature best fits it. It also shows that not only
private enterprise, but public money is actively at work developing the best
means of getting water onto the arid areas of that land, once thought im-
possible of use to civilization, as was the Great American desert of fifty
years ago. In doing this the example set by private enterprise in California
in sinking artesian wells, is not only encouraged by public recognition, but
the government engages in the same business when private capital and en-
terprise are insufficient, doing such work as was suggested by the writer in
a letter to Governor Moody and by him forwarded to Senator J. N. Dolph,
and by him submitted to the appropriate committee of the United States
senate. The committee included in an appropriation bill a liberal item to
test the artesian well system in Colorado and in Oregon, which was de-
feated, I think by nonconcurrence of the house of congress.

The need of water on the vast body of the public domain yet in the
arid land states requires that means should be taken to approximately
measure the amount of water which does not flow of by the river system,
nor is yet accounted for by the ascertained evaporation. In this, common
observation teaches that people of eastern Oregon are very greatly inter-
ested, because, on account of the character of the surface formation, the
precipitation falling east of the summit ridge of the Cascade range seems
in larger measure to pass into the ground where it falls—and not on that
range and interior mountains merely, but over the great plain of the Co-
lumbia basin. The disappearance of snow from the surface, under the in-
fluence of the (Chinook), wind from the Pacific ocean, leaving the ground
dry in a few minutes, seems to the observer magical—turning in a few
hours of time the extensive arid lands of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and
western Montana from a snow covered condition distressful for the stock
owner to contemplate, into immediately usable pasture lands, yet showing
little effect on the great river of the west—the Columbia—the floods of
which occur usually in June.

Where does this precipitation lodge; and is it recoverable for uses in
agriculture and horticulture? are questions of more pressing importance to
the people of Oregon at present than the opening of the unnecessarily large
Caseade forest reserve, on the eastern portion of which, pasturage being
permitted, the livestock interest can have the benefit until a permanent
forest policy (should one be needed) can be adopted, which will minister to
the general welfare. I have endeavored to show that the privilege of graz-
ing the east side of the Caseode range and foothills is of the annual value
of $1,000,000. The entire value of the sheep and wool interest of the state
is shown in the Oregonian of January 1, 1898, to be as follows:—

Pay}

[22s

Sheep; /2167 24 tread G@ Geis A ek el ee ey $ 4,876,292 25

Wools 15i706;s56ipounG say slOlCe mts ee et ee 1,570,635 60
Totalforisheep and wwO0ls- 22-2 a ee ee ee ee eee $ 6,446,927 85

Nearly, or quite, four fifths of the value is in the 1,867,542 sheep kept in
the fourteen counties of Eastern Oregon, where, as I have said, precipita-
tion sinks below the surface in a manner our eastern friends, who pass reso-
lutions to keep the use of our forest lands from us, cannot possibly under-
stand. Could these gentlemen become imbued with the knowledge Dr.
Fernow gained by his visit to Arizona last fall, and preceive as he did the
wonderful effects of water on the arid lands, which by the use of irrigation
water will become fields of production—gardens like that of EKden—in
which to grow ‘‘every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food,”’
they would cease to injure us. To realize Mr. Fernow’s conception there is
much more necessity for the expenditure of public money, to indicate to
the people how to secure the water precipitated during the year, for use in
the growing season, than there is for a forestry policy, albeit the experiment
station of Utah, by acting on Dr. Fernow’s proposition for setting apart cer-
tain lands for testing the timber trees, suggested by him in order to find
what is best, is taking hold of the forestry question in a practical manner.
The experiment station’s efforts to find how much irrigation water is re-
quired for the production of a given crop is very commendable, as teaching
how to make the desert blossom with the rose, in the very midst of the vast
area, we Dow begin to see of value that cannot yet be estimated; but which
I believe will be increased, not diminished, by the use of sheep in pasturing
all the timbered highlands interior to the Cascade range, as well as on its
eastern slopes.

To close this paper, I will summarize the position I believe the closest
possible scientific tests will demonstrate as true.

First.—Neither in the valleys nor on the mountains of Oregon ae either
sheep or cattle an injury to the growth of coniferous trees.

Second.—-While the density of the forest growth which Oregon people
deem commercial timber makes sheep keeping in it impossible, the grazing
of the summit ridges and eastern slopes is beneficial and protective.

Third.—Snow melts first on those mountains within the timber, or on
brush lands, to which I add, both timber and brush lands consume more
water than they give out (none of which is given out in any other way
than from the leaves). Trees lift the moisture from the earth while grow-
ing : the common observation of all who have worked in maple-sugar camps
teaches that there is a principle of life in a tree that causes the sap to run
when the grass plants are under snow. Still, snow lying from winter till
after the middle of July is incompatible with the growth of timber of value.
The surface sources of streams are from snow in the open after that date.
To this I will add that no plant known to me dispenses water from its roots
—all are drinkers; and when the question becomes so important as it is now

[ 23 |

becoming—how to makes homes of abundance on the yet unpurchased arid
lands, it is better to find out, if it be findable by science, whether we have
not all been following ‘‘a general concensus of opinion”? which science will
not sustain, by believing that shade will increase the flow of a mountain
stream as we were taught by the charming Ayrshire plowman, when he
made the stream say :—

‘Last day I grat wi’ spite and teen
When Poet Burns cam by
That to a bard I should be seen
With half my channel dry.”’

The conception of the poet was that the trees by their shade would
_prevent evaporation of more moisture than their roots would take up. The
forestry committee reasons on that basis, but my observation compels me to
conclude that the Shepherd King of Israel was truer to nature than Burns,
and will be found truer to science when he said of a good man: ‘ He shall
be like a tree planted by rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his
season ; his leaf also shall not wither’”’ * * *—Psalms 1:3.

APPENDIX.

In order to bring before the mind of interested readers the ratio of
evaporation, table No. LV of bulleton 50 of the Utah experiment station is
inserted as showing the results obtained by two European scientists:

TABLE NO. IV.

Made by Hellriegel. | Made by Wollny.

Ratio Pall

Ratio of

water evap- | | water Gls
F orated to orated to
Ey weight of | ER weight of
crop har- || crop har-
vested. i vested.
= = —_ — _— \| —- —— — "= = — —- ~ — —
Morse Deans 22222 --- eeee 262 Maize. 2 a2) oe ceo 233
Pease 322 a 292 Mille ts2io2252 fea Ses 416
Teta leh) ee S10ig |) (Peas 222-2 ose eee 447
CON CT es it aS Se 5a0! |||) Sunflower)c-- 2-2 s-e ss See | 490
Spring wheats = 2. 2 Sees 309 | Buckwheat —--_--_-_-___________ 646
Buckwheat Les an See eee BAL NN) SOE AIS) Soe ee ee 665
eI eC) ase eee 373835), Barley < 225 es Soe eee 774
SPE OSTy Oe eee ae EN NE ESS SIG Vig Nl pels eas bene ee NIELS Ne 843
Osta hae eee ee oe eee tek 402 | Rapejs2 2s Sooo ee 912

According to Hellriegel, 330 tons of water would be absorbed by the
roots of clover, drawn up through the stems and evaporated from the
breathing pores of the leaves for each ton of clover harvested. If the yield
be estimated at three tons per acre, the quantity of water per acre is 990
tons, or a volume sufficient to cover the surface to a depth of . feet, or
nearly nine inches.

Hellreigel’s results as to clover tends to explain why alfalfa, one of the
strongest growing of the clover family, is ‘‘always dry,’’ not unusually receiv-
ing sufficient over the surface during the growing season in Utah to cover

[ 24)

the ground six feet. Should alfalfa be found to drink water by the roots in
the same proportion as above claimed for clover the seven tons per year
given as the yield in the Snake River Canyon leads to the astonishing re-
sult of 2,310 tons of water per acre annually consumed, or about 27 inches,
which is yet so far short of the six feet mentioned by Mr. Samuel Fortier,
compiler of Bulletin 50, on the ‘‘ water supply of Cache valley, Utah.”’

The difference suggests such an immense waste of water where that
may beso truly called ‘‘ the water of life,’’ as to call for a wide range of ex-
periment, both as to the requirement of plants and economical methods of
furnishing what is necessary.

In connection with Mr. Dosch’s brief description of orchards and farms
of Snake river canyon, the cultivator ought to know as near as possible
how much water he needs for each acre of apples, pears, peaches, prunes or
other fruit crop; how much for his several field crops. These questions
will not only arise in limited localities, as between those who are drawing
from the same ditch, but will arise between districts as to what propor-
tion of a river, like the Snake river, shall be drawn out on the north side, at
the American falls for instance, and what amount will be required or can
be used on the south side. So, in such a situation as the Deschutes near
Farewell bend, the whole flow of the river might be taken on to the desert,
but on the west side the Tamilowa and Benton, or Squaw creek, can be
used over much of that area, while the whole of the stream could be taken
out on the east side and carried across Crooked river to fertilize a fine body
of dry plain on the north side of that stream.

There certainly seems a wide field for intelligent enterprise.

JOHN MINTO,
Seeretary State Board of Horticulture.

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