The new enterprise. (Madison, Fla.) 1901-1908, 1907-04-11
BEAVERS GOOD WORK.
Little Animal Helps to Improve Western Farms.

bridge where the road crosses. and I
had 10 back out or get wetting
Why is 1t these beavers still four
ish on this little stream, as in fact
they are beginning to flourish on
many another little stream in Mon
tana? 1t Is true that the Montana
law protects beaver, and 1t Is forbid
den 20 kill them, but in these sparse
~ settled districts the law Is often
forgotten, or If remembered, disre-
garded.
The reason that these beaver are
protected is that the man who claims
this water and the adjacent hay
meadow realizes that in the beaver
he has lot Of unpaid servants who
by their work are saving him a great
deal of labor and of money, They
have damned this creek and have
thus put under irrigation the mead
ows from which he cuts his hay. II
he were shortsighted enough to tear
up these dams and to kill these beav-
er he would be obliged to go to the
head of the stream and there take
out ditch bring it around along
the hillsides, build ,aterals and sub
laterals, and so get water on his hay
meadows at considerable expense.
Now, that meadow is sub-ir.igatod
throughout its whole length, receiv-
ing Just the amount of water that It
needs, and all this without one cent
of cost to him who cuts his hay there
This is a single example-but a
striking one-of thework the beavers
do. They are doing similar work
in a number of places in Montana,
but what seems to me much more in
teresting than the fact that they are
doing this work is the further fact
that people are coming to understand
the usefulness of their services and
are trying to encourage and protect
them in order that they may continue
this work.
There are many streams in Mon
tana, and indeed in other portions
of the West, where the water flows
on bed six, eight or twelve feet be-
low the level of the stream valley.
In such places men with infinite labor
build dams to hold back the water, so
irrigation, but nine times out of ten
when the spring freshets come the
dam goes out, the labor is wholly
lost and the meadow which it was
desired to irrigate remains as dry as
ever.
Such q stream IS the Rosebud
River, a tributary of the Yellowstone
I, l. Z =, IT. 10
or ninety miles of its course its valley
is broad and fiat with wide meadows,
which, If watered. produce luxuriant
crops of grain or alfalfa or of native
hay. But the stream itself flows
through a narrow channel cut
through this valley and ten or twelve
feet below its general level. More
over, about midsummer the Rosebud
usually goes dry and for months wa
ter stands in it merely in holes.
Many attempts-some of them sue
cessful-have been made to dam the
stream so as to store the spring water
for irrigation, but where these at
tempts are not successful the dry
meadows far above the water level
produce nothing except a little dry
pasture. At one point, however,
twenty-five or thirt..' miles from the
mouth there exists little colony of
beaver which the ranch owner has
protected. They have damned one
or two trickles of water forming from
springs in the hills, have made them
selves a series of ponds in which the
water stands only a little below the
level of the meadows, and the result
of this shows itself in the best hay
meadow on the place.
In the settling up of the West the
beaver has played a great part. 1t
was the beaver that led men into and
across those mysterious Businesses
that used to be called the Shining
Mountains. 1t will be interesting if
in these latter days, when civilization
with all that goes with it has thrust
itself into every nook and valley of
those Shining Mountains and the
land on both sides of them, the living
beaver should perform an active
work in making the land productive
and it's occupancy by the white man
possible.-Forest and Stream.