Ogden Daily Standard | 1909-02-20 | Page 6 | Clyde Leavitt Talks to Utah Engineers

CLYDE LEAVITT TAI KS TO UTAH ENGINEERS The conservation of the natural resources re-sources of the lntermountain country was the subject considered at th meeting of the Utah Soclet of Engineers En-gineers in tho auditorium of the Packard Pack-ard library, Salt Lake. Clyde Leavitt. district forester of th forestry tervice.sald almost all the timber lands In Utah are now included includ-ed in tho forestry conservation, so the burden fall3 mainly upon the federal fed-eral government. The forest r service had been fortunate In Utah, he said, many of the people having petitioned for It. The natural resources had been. Impaired in the past, and it was lor the present generation to say whether the resources shall be repaired re-paired The present supply of timber tim-ber at the present consumption vsoulct not last more than thir'y-threp years, as it is bei.ig cut three and a hair times faster than it grows. Forestry was being practiced on 7 per cent of the public lands, and less than 1 per cent on private lands. The annual an-nual loss from forest fires, Mr. Leavitt Leav-itt said. wa3 $50,000,000. In 1902 when the lands were administered by the land ofllce, five and a half acres In every thousand were destroyed annual ly by fire, and under the administration administra-tion of the forest service last year less than one acre per thousand was deftroyed. Last jear the tire patrot saved $34,000,000 of umber. He declared de-clared that the. national rorests were not created to regulate the grazers, the purpose waa the preservation ot the timber to future generations and the protection of the watershed. Last year the government derived from the grazers a revenue of $962,000.