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WITH

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STUMP LANDS?

FRED C. DAYTON

HE greatest problem that confronts the people of the Pacific Coast states, is what to do with the vast areas of land left barren by the woodsman's ax and saw. Millions of acres of giant timber have been cut-over and the great stumps and tangles of underbrush left to menace standing timber through fire and to bar the way of the agriculturist. In eighteen counties in the state of Washington, west of the Cascade Mountains there are 8,700,000 acres of assessed land. Of this, 5,034,000 acres are covered with merchantable timber; 429,000 acres are under cultivation; and 2,352,000 acres have had the timber cut off and consist of what is called "logged-off" land. In Oregon the logged-off area is about equal to that in Washington. In British Columbia, on the Canadian side of the line, another million acres of logged-off

land lie idle, of no use whatever to mankind.

The big lumber companies of the West have hewed and slashed ruthlessly into the virgin timber of the Northwest. The standing trees are of such huge size, that the average tree is cut ten or twelve feet above the ground, leaving an enormous stump from ten to sixteen feet in diameter. Only the long straight knotless trunk of the tree is used and the tangle of branches is left where it falls. No attempt is made by the timber hewers to remove anything from the land except the choicest timber. In fact so little do the lumber barons care for the land after they get the timber off, that in most cases they allow it to revert to the county for taxes.

The survey made last summer by Professor Landes, Dr. Benson, and Dr. Fry of the Washington State University and

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Prof. W. J. McGee, of the federal Department of Agriculture was to determine how best to utilize these vast logged-off areas. One of the most important lessons growing out of this investigation was that the cut-over lands should be protected from fire. It is more important, according to these men, to keep the fire out of these areas than out of the standing timber.

On the logged-off lands the great accumulation of waste becomes dry and highly inflammable. In addition, this land is heavily covered with moss, which by the exposure to the sun becomes like tinder. This waste, including the pitchloaded stumps, burns freely and with great heat. The thick moss quickly carries the flames to the nearby timber, as well as ignites the heavy rich mulch, with which the soil is covered, beneath the moss. This reduces the soil to a barren wilderness. Thus all the constructive work of nature for ages reverts to the desert.

One big lumber company in Washington has seen the folly of this enormous

waste and is now experimenting with a view to converting it into dollars. The spectacle of this concern taking up the dairy business and the production of prime beef is now engaging the attention of Western economists. The members of this company, on whom the final success or failure of the conservation idea is conceded to rest, announce that never since the conservation policies were first urged, has there been a departure of such vital bearing on the immediate future of the Pacific slope.

Two hundred and fifty acres of this concern's logged-off land have been set aside for the experiment. This land has been seeded to orchid grass and clover. Several carloads of young stock were turned loose to graze as soon as the crop was well rooted. In a few weeks additional stock will be added. The experiment so far is declared to be successful and of far more value than the timber wealth, will be the agriculture worth after the woods have disappeared.

The finest dairying country in the world eventually will be found where the

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timber now stands. Anything that will grow in the western climate will grow on logged-off lands.

But the success of the conservation movement depends largely on the owners of the vast timber tracts. In the last few years small land holders have demonstrated the value of these lands for agricultural purposes, but these few pioneers are scarcely a drop in the bucket. when the enormous area of land is considered.

Dr. Rudolph S. Hoague is preparing to demonstrate the value of these lands by establishing a colony in Washington. Already the county in which this colony will be formed, has shipped 350 carloads of choice prunes this season. While not all this land is suitable for general cultivation, it is often ideal for fruit and poultry. The stumps often are left in

the ground and only the underbrush cleared away. In other cases the land is cleared away and luxuriant growths of clover and grasses provide forage for cows to transform into milk. One man on twenty acres last year sold $3,000 worth of products. He had six Jersey cows, ten young cattle, forty chickens. and sold beef, veal, potatoes, apples, garden truck, cherries, plums, butter, cream, milk, eggs and poultry.

Thus it will be seen that the real conservation problem, in regard to the timber, does not rest entirely on leaving the trees standing, but on the ultimate utilization of the land. In the place of vast areas of blackened stumps, there should be seen waving fields of grasses, blossoming orchards, lowing herds, and flocks of well-kept poultry to delight the eye.

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In the Utah Valley, sixty miles south of Salt Lake City, are sixty thousand acres of land which need water to make them fruitful. This valley is separated from the Strawberry Valley by the lofty Wasatch Mountain range. On the other side of that range, in the Strawberry Valley, is the Strawberry River, which, to furnish the requisite water, is to be brought through the great rocky barrier. by the tunnel aforementioned.

The Strawberry River now flows into the Colorado River, its waters thus finding their way eventually into the Gulf of

California.

But, in obedience to the mighty power of engineering, it will be obliged in future to obliged in future to turn its current through the four-mile tunnel into the adjoining Utah Valley, where it will be diverted into canals for irrigating purposes. By means of a dam forty-five feet high, its waters will be impounded, so as to form an immense lake for storage.

Thus a very striking change will be made in the physical geography of the region. But the unique part of the business, from an engineering standpoint, is the taking of a small stream in the Utah Valley, diverting it by a dam into a cement-lined canal, passing it several miles along the side of a hill, and dropping its water through a pressure pipe upon turbines in a power house, generating electric power which is transmitted to the tunnel camp far up in the mountains, where it is used in boring the great hole.

This small stream is called Spanish Fork. Its water, after being utilized for

the production of electric power in the manner described, is turned into the canals for irrigation, thus serving a double purpose. Incidentally, the surplus electricity has been leased to the town of Spanish Fork-which claims four thousand inhabitants-for illumination and other purposes.

The construction of the Strawberry Tunnel, a mile and a half above sea level, is perhaps the most beautiful piece of engineering work the Reclamation Service has ever undertaken. In magnitude it is second only to the huge bore now completed, in Colorado, to carry the Gunnison River through a mountain range. In summer time the work of digging the tunnel is carried on without much difficulty, but in winter at that altitude the storms are frightful, and snow accumulates to almost unbelievable depth. During the winter of 1908 the snow-fall on the watershed, as shown by the weather bureau's snow-boxes, was nearly twentythree feet.

The tunnel is concrete-lined and about sixty square feet in area of section-that is to say, six and a half feet high and seven and a half feet wide, with arched roof. It will carry five hundred cubic feet a second. But it will not be finished for about three years. The Utah Valley has no outlet to the sea, and the water fetched through the mountains from the Strawberry Valley, after all of it is used. that can be used for irrigation, will find its way into the Great Salt Lake.

The Utah Valley is one of the oldest settled parts of the West. Pioneer farmers established themselves there as early as 1850. Peaches, apples, cherries, plums, alfalfa, all kinds of vegetables, and likewise the cereals, grow there most luxuriantly and profitably. There has been irrigation from the first. But the water supply is insufficient, and this is why the government is going to bring more water, and plenty of it, through the heart of the mountains.

The Reclamation Service says that the

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