66 The Environmental Debate
flocks crop these grasses, and trample the leaves
and cones into the ground, and make many trails
through the woods, they destroy the conditions
most favorable to the spread of fire. But if the pas-
turage is crowded, the young growth is destroyed
and the forests are not properly replenished by
a new generation of trees. The wooded grounds
that are too dense for pasturage should be annu-
ally burned over at a time when the inflammable
materials are not too dry, so that there may be no
danger of great conflagrations.
The area of good timber being very small,
it has great value, and its rapid destruction is
a calamity that cannot well be overestimated.
These living forests are always a delight, for in
beauty and grandeur they are unexcelled; but
dead forests present scenes of desolation that fill
the soul with sadness. The vast destruction of
values, together with the enormous ravishment
of beauty, have for years enlisted the sympathy
of intelligent men. Forestry organizations have
been formed; conventions have been held; pub-
licists have discussed the subject; and there is a
universal sentiment in the West, and a growing
opinion in the East, that measures should be
taken by the General Government for the protec-
tion of the forests.Source: A. John Wesley Powell, “The Irrigable Lands of the
Arid Region,” Century Magazine 39, no. 5 (March 1890):
766-68. B. John Wesley Powell, “The Non-irrigable Lands
of the Arid Region,” Century Magazine, 39, no. 6 (April
1890): 917-20.miles. So forest industries are segregated in one
region, farming industries in another. It is no
small task for the farmer and the villager to haul
their wood from distant mountains and to bring
poles and logs from the upper region....
The miners are also interested in these for-
ests. As they penetrate their shafts, drifts, and
galleries into the hills and mountains, they carry
away to the surface the rock in which the gold,
silver, copper and lead are found, that the metals
may be extracted on the ground above.
Before the white man came the natives sys-
tematically burned over the forest lands with
each recurrent year as one of their great hunt-
ing economies. By this process little destruction
of timber was accomplished; but, protected by
civilized men, forests are rapidly disappearing.
The needles, cones, and brush, together with
the leaves of grass and shrubs below, accumu-
late when not burned annually. New deposits are
made from year to year, until the ground is cov-
ered with a thick mantle of inflammable mate-
rial. Then a spark is dropped, a fire accidentally
or purposely kindled, and the flames have abun-
dant food.
There is a practical method by which the for-
ests can be preserved. All of the forest areas that
are not dense have some value for pasturage pur-
poses. Grasses grow well in the open grounds,
and to some extent among the trees. If herds and