The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908, 1908-10-03
The Forests of Idaho.

ealtv The country was vast the inhabitants few,
and the first need of the nation was that
its domain should be peop1ed and be made produc
tive
Almost two hundred years elapsed before the pres.
ence of the vast treeless plains known. From
the first the American pioneer on the Atlantic coast
had to clear away the forest in order to make
home And by reason of this necessity we seem
to have become mbued with the spirit of forest
destruction. We have watched the disappearance
of the magnificent white pine forests of New Eng
land without regret and almost without comment.
It has only been in the last decade that there has
been anything like a general awakening OF public
sentiment the forestry question The whole east
is great forest and in spite of farmer, and logger,
and the fire end the country east of the plains is yet
rich in forest wealth
In the west we have known from the first that our
timber supplies outside the coast region were limit
ed to the mountains. Not western state or terri
tory but has vast stretches of dry plains which
only need water to make them the most productive
fields in the world Unlike the eastern country,
where the whole land is a potential forest there
are hundreds of miles in great western country
where no tree casts refreshing shade where rivers
hide their waters beneath burning sands IN the
drv midsummers, where without mans aid desolation
reigns.
At first the western settler like his ancestors of
eastern pioneer days, found the forest cover an I'M
pediment 1t was in his way in prospecting in mining
in farming and he used the quickest means OF get
ting rid of 1.-THE fire The railroads that crossed
the mountains cleaned their right of way by fire and
permitted it to spread beyond control, taking no
thought of the tremendous damage done both within
and bevond their limits The mountains were every
where forest-cad, and the few inhabitants consld-
cred them as inexhaustible as the pineries of
NTo;p nd lOggerS
earlier days and this feeling is still abroad
In the mountains of the west we have yet to
create public sentiment favorable to the protection
of the forests for the sake of the future. The
efforts of the government protect the forests OF
the public domain have thus far been futile mainly
for the absence of such sentiment Government
agents have found it we'll nigh impossible to con-
vict men for the violation of the timber laws be-
cause the whole sentiment of the people was OPP
posed to the laws, believing that they worked
hardship on the individual settler, while not pro-
tecting the forests against corporations which sought
gain only
In the east-where the needs of great popua-
ton coupled with wasteful methods of logging and
the action of fire, have reduced the productive
capacity of the forests very materially, destroying,
indeed forest industries in many ocallt1es-publ1c
attention has been more readily directed to the
sity of forest conservation and considerations OF
the future appear more natural. With us in the
west the present demands all thought, all energy with
limited population the timber supply seems still I'm
limited. and the relationship of forest to other
conditions has hardly yet dawned on us.
Idaho is to a great degree typical of the mountain
states as regards the Importance of its forest
as we'll as regards the attitude of the people toward
theories of forest protection Throughout its entire
area Idaho is traversed with mountains which group