The Butte inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1901-1912, 1901-12-03
FOREST RESERVES FAVORED.


be better protected from fires.
Many of them need special protection
because of the great injury done by live
stock, above all by sheep. The increase
In deer elk and other animals in the YELL
loWstone park shows that what may be
expected when other mountain forests
are properly protected by law and prop
erly guarded.
Some OF these areas have been so de-
nuded of surface vegetation by over
grazing that the ground breeding birds,
including grouse and quail, and many
animals, including deer, have been ex-
terminated Or driven away.
At the same time the water-storing ca
paclty of the surface has been decrea sed
or destroyed, thus promoting floods in
times of rain and diminishing the flow
OF streams between rains
Work of Nature.
In cases where natural conditions have
been restored for few years, vegeta-
ton has again carpeted the ground. birds
and deer are coming back and hundreds
OF persons, especially from the immediate
neighborhood, come each summer to en-
Joy the privilege of camping.
Some at least of the forest reserves
should afford perpetual protection to the
hatVe FAUNA and flora, safe Ravens of
TeIuge to our rapidly diminishing wild
animals of the larger kinds, and free
camping grounds for the ever-increa sing
numbers of men and women who have
learned to find rest, health and recrea-
tlon In the splendid forests and flower
cad meadows of our mountains
Inc forest reserves should be set apart
Forever FOR the use and benefit of our
people as whole and not sacrificed TO
the short-sighted greed of few.
The forests are natural reservoirs. nv
restraining the streams in food and re-
plenishfng them in drouth thew make
possible the use of waters otherwise
wasted.
Protect Ctorage Reservoirs.
They prevent the soil from washing.
and so protect the storage reservoirs from
Milling up with SILT Forest conserva ton
is therefore an essential condition Of
water conservation.
The forests alone cannot. however fn,lv
regulate and conserve the waters of the
ard region. Great storage works are
necessary to equalize the flow of streams
ana to save the flood waters
Ihelr construction has been conclu-
s1vely shown to be an undertaking too
vast for private effort. Nor can it be best
accomplished by the Individual states
acting alone. Far-reaching interstate
problems are involved; and the resources
or single states would often be made
quate. 1t Is properly a national func-
e'on, at least in some of it's features.
National Governments Right.
1t is as right for the national govern
ment to make the streams and rivers of
the arid region useful by engineering
works for water storage as to make use
ful the rivers and harbors or the humid
region by engineering works of another
kind.
The h.'ring of floods in reservoirs at
the headwaters of our rivers is but an
enlargement of our present policy OF river
control, under which levees are built on
the lower reaches of the same streams.
fhe government should construct and
maintain these reservoirs as it does other
pupllc works. Where their purpose is to
regulate the flow of streams, the water
should be turned freely into The channels
IN the dry season to take the same course
under the same laws as the natural flow