The Meeker herald. [volume] (Meeker, Colo.) 1885-current, 1915-03-20
The Forest Reserve Fraud

| in the last issue of the Denver
Field and Farm, J. s. Hoy, the
Reown's Park pioneer. says:
AThe final test of any business is
does 1t pay? II you were to engage
IN growing trees for home use or for
commerce would you select land at
IN altitude ef 5000 feet and on up into
the clouds, in regions inaccessible to
railroads, where frOsts falls every
night In the year and where water
freezes night and day during nine
months Of every year? Would you
select conifers that require two hun
dfed years to grow large enough to
make . small saw log? can show
these forestry crazed vertebrates a
tract of land burnt over forty years
ago at an altitude of less than 5000
fe}t above sea level. If the largest
tr4e was cut of at the ground could
shoulder, carry and load it onto a
wagon without assistance, SO II 1t re-
quired forty years to grow these
spindling pines ten feet high it would
require two hundred years for them
to attain height of fifty or more
feet that they usually grow, big
enough for railroad ties, telegraph
poles and shingle timber.
"Soon after the original trees were
burnt, nature began at once to repair
the loss and damage SO that at the
end of a few years the ground was
well stocked with tiny treelings.
Why did not the settler In Nebraska
plant conifers instead Of cotton
woods, willows, naples and locusts?
Because they wanted f1rewOod. poles,
pdtts and logs during their lifetime,
Knowing they were Of rapid growth,
superior to pine for post and fire.
wood. What WAS best for them
would be equally beneficial for pos
te2ity and for the welfare of our
selves and our children and the
rights of the plain people," Even
that invertebrate Of the genus ostrea
hab brains enough to know better
th4n attempt to grow tress in regions
OF eternal frost and ice, but chief
forester is not an oyster, he is lam
prey, the missing link. With an ef-
fort OF the epiglotis they enunciate;
"A1though in number of cases
planting has been done chiefly with
the view Of reforesting denuded wa
tsasheds in order to control and regu-
IN the flow Of streams directly sup
ply Ing cities and towns"
This reference to the water supply
is only to cover up their designs.
Why do they not make good and reg
ulate and control the floods? This
forestry scheme was begun forty
years ago-in 1876. They have spent.
squsndered millions each year, har-
rassed the people of dozen states,
the price of lumber continues to rise,
floods continue to devastate the
country or the land is scorched. crops
burned for the want of water. Every
body knows that after winter of un-
usual deep snowfall all the forests
and timber in the nation can not ar
|rest the flood when it is ready to
come. A series OF da ms If anything
might control these mighty floods.
To build dams and bitches the work
would require fewer clerks while the
thousand of adolescent Don Quixotes
would be nnecessary-young men
roaming the mountains, seeking dam
sells In distress, righting wrongs, sue
coring the weak, Furnishing the wick
ed, hunting bears, guarding beaver,
counting and branding elk, deer and
sheep, shooing pheasants, grouse and
quail down to the lower country,
chaperoning tourists, improving the
scenery and developing the land