Rocky Mountain Forests

Rocky Mountain Forests BY J. II. PAUL, PROFESSOR OF NATURE STUDY, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

The planting of trees on Arbor Day has several great possi- bilities. First there is the example which high officials of the State and Nation thereby set to the people whose representatives they are. They thereby signify the opinion which they accord to the practice of agriculture and the especial favor which they feel towards the economic value and the untold worth of trees.

WHAT GBOVES SIGNIFY Trees are among the most significant of real things in nature. They are interwoven with the history, the romance, the stories, and the development of all past ages. They form a great part of our present prosperity and enjoyment. They are indispensable to the economic life of any highly civilized nation or people. They are the center about which have revolved numerous great episodes of the past. In the course of the earth's history, their sheltering ef- fect has been the theme, often the inspiration of many of the best things that exist in all of our rich literature. Their signifi- cance as types of growth, expansion, reproduction, and of the accumulation of wealth, had appealed almost uniformly to the greater minds of our race. Today, here in the West, the appeal made by the presence of trees is even more significant than that which it has uniformly made to the peoples of other lands. Here the desert nature of our country makes their presence doubly welcome. With us the grove is a type of all that is most beauti- ful, most refreshing, and most restful in the time of our summer's heat. To the artist the forest affords the best, the worthiest, and the most striking types of landscapes. To the stockman the grove is the center of departure and return, a place for camping, a spot

particularly loved for the shelter and rest which it has afforded him. To the farmer trees signify the grassy undergrowth that makes good pastures and the shade to the flock or the herd at noon- day. To the poet the grove is the place of sylvan retreats, of whispering boughs, of talking leaves, and singing branches.

CONSERVATORS OF SOIL To the student of nature, and especially to the geologist, trees are the conservators, the defenders, and preservers of the

soil. They are especially so on the great divides where the snow lies deep.When the snow banks begin to melt, the tree roots and underbrush, their debris and the soil mold, entangle and delay the trickling water. No longer does it come down all at once, but sinks slowly into the ground, to find the slender channels on bed- rock, whence, far lower down, it may issue as springs or be

A MEADOW IN THE MOUNTAINS, LOGAN CANYON, CACHE NATIONAL FOREST .

absorbed at once by the rootlets of the trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowers. The underground water clings around each soil grain. In the form of capillary films or hydroscopic moisture, as the books term it, it surrounds each particle. It does not evap- orate but continually enriches the soil by the minerals which it drinks in from each soil grain that it encircles, till it may be finally taken from its fast embrace and absorbed by the roots of plants — the final destination of this moist fertility.

THE REAL LOSSES

The loss of the timber on the mountain tops or along the hillside, great as that loss is, is not the only or principal ruin. The continued destruction of trees on mountains without replant- ing really means national decline. The greatest loss, much greater though more hidden from ordinary view, than the threatened

timber famine, is the loss of groves as such, followed by the de- struction of the shrubs, then of the grass and wild flowers, finally, and worst of all, the loss of the soil itself. Every rain shower, every melting of the snow bank after the forest is gone, increases the soil wash, cutting a gully and finally stripping bare the slop- ing sides of the hills. The soil is carried into the stream and by the stream it is thrown upon the valleys below in the form of floods. A flood is composed half of water and half of the rich soil-mold, grains of sand, and gravel, in which the trees and shrubs had their roots. For a time the stumps of cut trees still hold back the soil and this condition often gives a chance for reforestation before these roots have loosened their grip and before the buried arms and fingers relax and waste away by decay, letting the soil slip from their myriad fibres. This gives time, I say, to replant the ancient forests. But if we wait too long and the soil is eroded away to bed rock, then all hope of future planting is gone. Tens of thousands of our hill sides are being devastated, — the price of our wasteful destruction due to the removal of trees without any replanting. The object of this statement of conditions that I have seen in hundreds of places during the last eight years, as I have traveled over crests of the higher divides of our mountain ranges

PLACES FOR OUTINGS OF BOY SCOUTS This is a camp on McCloud river, Shasta National Forest; thou- sands of such places abound in the mountains of Utah.

in the West, is that wish simply to call the attention of the I

people to the great and ever-increasing necessity for immediate replanting and for more careful handling of the forests.

THE FOREST CROP

The forest produces a crop that should be harve'sted in due season, the same as any other crop from the soil. As soon as the trees have reached their maximum of growth, they should be cut down carefully and systematically and put to use in saw mills or on the farms and in mines. It is wrong to let them stand after the crop is ripe. The forest crop is continually coming on, and the process of selecting these that should be removed, either because they are mature or because, as they grow larger they may crowd one another, should be intelligently conducted under the supervision of trained foresters.

A Storm at Night on the Desert BY WILLIAM WERRETT, JR.

I sit The night is dark, save for sharp flashes of alone. lightning. The wind howls its song of loneliness, as if it, too, is in conspiracy with some force to increase the misery of my

loneliness. Now and again, the wind ceases, and the grave-like silence is broken only by the solitary pattering of a few drops of rain upon the roof. Just as I feel that my ears will break from the melancholy silence that seems to weight them, just as I prepare for an engulfment of I know not what, the heavens are torn asun- der and nature continues her cannonading, all too close for mortal comfort, as if to suggest the awful power she holds. The winds abate, there is only an occasional flash of light, the cannonading is so far removed as to be scarcely audible the rain ;

ceases, and all is quiet. Out in the west a star appears, as if it were braver than its sisters in emerging from its hiding place soon another, and an- ;

other; until all is bright, and each member of the firmament vies to outshine its neighbor. What a few moments ago was but a manifestation of power and wrath, which seemed to threaten vengeance and showed na- ture in her awful power has changed to a scene of beauty and peace. And the stars smile down and seem to say, "Peace on earth, good will toward men."