, 1900-08-09
THAT vRxED QUESTION.
Soma Facts Concerning the Damage
Done Ranchmen Along Streams
Used by Tie Drirers.

A1@h
more timber than tie camps.
We all know this, and one of
our chief objects Is seeking to
have our timber protected by a
Forest Reserve that we may have
rangers whose duty it will be to
put ont such fires and bring the
wretches who start them inten-
tionnlly to justice.
As TO the amount of land being
taken up by tie men now, there
are fourteen (14) timber land
notices in the same issue of the
paper in which his letter appears,
and in the other Saratoga paper of
the same week appears six more.
Every week we have seen more
and more fresh notices of timber
land claims which have been tax
en- up for tie contractors. Now
no II opposes the cutting of ripe
timber under proper Government
supervision and restraint, but. on
the other hand every good citizen
should oppose, with all their pow
er, the turning over of our mag
%niticent forests to the mercy of
such foreign corporations ms Coe d
Coe, Teller d Co. to Fitzpatrick
Bros. if they choose to enter the
business or to any other corpora
ton, whether foreign or local.
The Medicine Bow tie camp may
he n benefit in some ways to some
of the ranchmen. He says they
do no damage to any one on the
creek. | speak of what has hap
pened here this gear, where on
Pass creek MIR. Mead has estimat
the damage done him in cutting
the banks of the creek. thereby
r filling the water with sediment
which washed into and filled up
his irrigating bitches with dirt.
damaging his crops, and also the
tearing out his fences across the
creek, and shutting off his water
when needed most, at close to
$1,000.
Another man on the same creek
says it will take him and his man
two weeks to put back the fences
across the creek as they were be
fore. The fences were on his
own land, every foot of them. on
which he is assessed and pays
taxes. He was also much dam
aged in other ways.
The managers of the drive put
n letter in the Sun shortly after
ward saying that no damage was
done to any one. Mr.. Schoonians
: says that he would not take $1,000
to allow the drive to 90 through
his ranch another year and do the
same damage.
On Brush creek this year the
tie drivers built Il dam across the
slough at the head of the Sterrett
ditch using a big log on which
: they piled brush, with rock on top
of the brush, shutting off all the
water save what filtered through
the dam, not over one-tenth part
of the amount which the State of
Wyoming has allowed to the own
ers of the ditch. And they left
this dam in place after the drive
had passed, forcing the ranchmen
to take 1T out again. They did
the same thing in the same place
the year before. Yet they claim.
as Mr.. Graves does, that they
have done no harm to any one.
On Rock creek n tie outfit did
arbitrarily shut down every head
gate till they had taken their ties
to the X. Il. He says they only
required eleven days to do it. and
that the ranchmen had plenty of
water all the time.!! If there had
been plenty of water the tie outfit
would probably not have shut the
headgates. but they did shut them.
and if they can do it for one day
or eleven days they can do it for
thirty days if they please just as
well.
Mr.. Graves company may do
all he says of their own free will
but what we want is a law that
will compel all tie outfits to do
right, whether they wish to do il
or not. and force them to give