Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1885-1890, 1885-09-12
OUR FAILING E
Their Destruction by Fire. and the
Calamities that Follow.

a more vital interest to America at
large than the certain disappearance
of our once unrivalled forests: and it
is the Importance Of the subject, to-
gether with the Interior momentous
consequences attending it, which rem
ders difident at COMPRISING my re
marks within the scope Of this article.
The noble forests Of America have
long been treated as inexhaustible.
The time, now, however, is rapidly
approaching when the United States
will have to protect her woods and
forests the same as Russia, France,
Germany. etc, are doing. The most
disastrous enemy we have is the for
est fires which periodically desolate
large tracts. Instance the great Mira
MICH fire Of 1926, which destroyed
5000 square miles, and the great
Peshtigs fire Of 1881, which covered
500 square miles, and multitudes Of
minor ones. Even Montana, with her
meagre supply Of timber, has already
lost over one-tenth Of her supply by
this We can control waste
and pillage in the forests-they are
but the work Of man-but we are ter
ribly helpless against fire. It is in
every country the greatest enemy Of
the forest, especially the pine forests.
It is ubiquitous; in North America,
New Zealand, and Australia, through
India, the Russian Empire, Sweden
and Norway, it throws around the
globe a lurid girdle, only broken by
the ocean. More pine timber has been
destroyed by fire than has ever been
cut and taken out by the husband
man. Not only are the large size
trees burned, but all The young trees
as well, which ought to have retrieved
the lands.
The difficulty of guarding against
fire in forests is very great, but as for
extinguishing it when started, that is
beyond the power Of a It will
sweep onward as long as it finds food;
leap like a giant over rivers like the
great Ottawa and Miamichi, and will
only stop by reaching wide expanses
of water, or rocky and barren ground
with nothing to burn. Ny limits will
not allow me to dwell on the origin Of
these fires. The effects of them are
visible. Throughout the great West
there is one general.complaint Of their
frequency. In Colorado ono-third Of
the timber accessible among the
mountains has been burned oven and
killed within six years G8S2). Utah,
Idaho, and New Mexico all have the
same cause for complaint. In Oregon
prior to the arrival of immigrants, in
1917, fires were unknown, and in that
year millions of acres of the finest
timber were burned. Tn Montana
we know Of the terrible amount of
damage done in the different noun
tain ranges by fire. [ need not emu
merate them, for they occur every
year. Now if we add to the destruc-
ton by fire of the timber the amount
necessarily required by man for fire
wood, lumber, railroads, factories,
&c, when VIZ remember that it is es-
timated that the United States and
Canada consume 243 billion feet of
lumber annually, that the ordinary
wants of the railroads every year
would strip 175,000 acres Of its tim
Der, and that the amount Of firewood
used is twenty million loads annually,
we cannot but conclude that either
there has to be a halt called in the
destruction Of the forests or all sup
plies will be exhausted prior to the
twentieth century.
The experience Of other countries
has shown us what effects the denuda-
ton Of forests has caused. It has
shown that it will tend
LIST. To decreased volume OF water
in hitherto navigable rivers.
I'd. To increased danger Of floods
and foundations.
Sd. To cause severer and wider
spread hail storms and cyclones.
4th. To larger areas of desolate
country caused by lack of moisture.
The decreased volume of water in
hitherto navigable rivers is well shown
in Northern Italy, France and Ger
many, and the decrease of water was
in the ratio Of the amount of timber
cut. The reason is plain: while the
trees were living IN the mountains
their verdure protected the snow from
the rays Of the sun and thus prevent
ed its Immediate melting from that
cause. Even in the United States,