OCR Text |
Show H & Fire-fighting Sheep & Hj Tho sheep is to be the very latest K enlistment in the fiie-fightingr forces H on the public domain. B When tho open season for forest H fires comes this summer, it is expected H by tho wool growers of the west, and B by the forestry department, that the BB chances of conflagration will be ma- Hff terially lessened, if, in the meantime, Hi the bars to the forest are let down B and the sheep are permitted, with B , the cattle, to clear the ground of dry, B' combustible growth. Hf The sheep, then, comes in as the Bi most modern conservationist, and if Bj in tho new forestry policy tho anl- B mal is given its proper place among B the forces that tend to conserve the B' country's resources, tho variety of con- B servationists, human and otherwise, B will be correspondingly -widened by B this unique and involuntary addition. L The timber tinder that thrives and Hj dries in the open spaces of the forest Bi has been directly responsible for the HI loss of $20,000,000 worth of property H, in the last few yea--, according to i an estimate made by Chief Forester H. m, S. Graves, who has made his first Hh roundup of the forest reserves and H f conferences with theii supervisors anci B rangers. The practical men. of the B ' forest believe that with the under- Bi growth wiped out, there would be a ! tremendous 'silving' in merchantable timber and in timber serviceable only for watershed purpos.es. The sheep Hjj. men propose woolly mowing machines B to eradicate the growth. D' Fivo thousand fires a year in tho n forest reserves of the nation is an ap- H palling record that has opened the H eyes of the forest service. More ap- H propriations have been made to pat- H rol forests, to construct highways, H trails and telephone lines, to employ H additional and more completely effect !a network of supervision, but this ex- j pansion of the service has not reduced i the number of forest fires. H I Wherefore, in the awakening of the Hi forest service to the futility of perfect Hi supervision as a saeguard, the inno- Hjj cent sheep has wandered innocently Hf into the fold of calculation. H , Back of it there is an interwoven H stoo of mutton and wool; ahead may H ' lie the solution of a national peril. H - There are standpattors among the M ' wool growers, as there are progres- H . slves. Neither faction has been able to make a hit with the forestry de- H partment because both made a fluke f start to accomplish the desired end. IThe standpat wool grower has been in the business since childhood. His B ' father was a pioneer sheep man and I came Into the west when there B wasn't much else but public domain B He ranged his sheep wherever ho B pleased, increased his flock until it B became unwieldly and then split it up fl among his children, who, by that time!. B . had grown to tho proportion of sheep- B herders and were capable of handling B ' flocks themselves. B Tho standpat sons ranged their B J! flocks over the west, picking out tho B fit choicest summer and winter ranges, B , I increasing their herds and waxing rich I on the freedom of tho public domain. Then along came the forest service, the allotment of lands, the legal fences tho conservation. The standpat son whose father was responsible for his ,wealth lof wool and mutton stood aghast. Ho took tho position that so long as he had sheep, the government govern-ment had no right to cut the number num-ber down to conform to restrictions that were placed upon the public domain. do-main. Where in the past ho was priv-flggd priv-flggd to range the length and breadth of file forest, now he must take out a permit for a certain number of head of sheep. The government regulated the maximum on all forests. Forest rangers were on the job to see that ho didn't range any mdre than his permit called for. Another restriction upon the standpatter was the refusal of the government to allow him to divide his flock among members of his family and take out seporate permits. Tho standpatter saw his flock gradually grad-ually reduced until today tho average size of a herd of sheep that is individually indi-vidually owned numbers 2,500 to 3,000 head. It has been established that no man canmake money in tho wool business, as a distinct pursuit, with any less. The progressive wool grower was a creature of evolution. He saw changing chang-ing conditions and stepped into tho breach to meet them. He didn't attack at-tack the forest conservation policy when it became defined. Yet he was driven with the standpatters from the watersheds of the west, and from among the merchantable timber. Ho was content to range his flocks where there was still government ground. Big companies were organized and private pri-vate ranges acquired, but tho progressive progres-sive saw wide areas of the national forests that were still unused, and he naturally resented tho reduction of his flocks when there was still available avail-able ground in the forest ranges. In their local meetings in all of tho western wool states, tho progressive upset the radical standpatter and carried car-ried his fight up to the government. He tried to convince tho forestry bureau bu-reau that so long as there was plenty of acreage for sheep, the flocks should be permitted to use it. If homesteaders came in with small herds, they argued, permits should bo issued and tho larger herds cut down as tho drain upon space demanded. The progressive wool grower started a campaign of education that culminated culmi-nated in a harmonious taeoting between be-tween tho wool growers and the forest service last year in Salt Lake. Foresters For-esters from all tho ranges of the Rockies attended the meeting which lasted a week, and which was presided pre-sided over by H S. Graves, the chief forester. Graves had been out over tho important ranges of the west shortly after his appointment to succeed suc-ceed Pinchot. Ho absorbed a groat many facts and since that time has been turning them over in his mind, coming back a year later to meet his supervisors and rangers to adopt ways and means for tho bets application of his theories to the practical stewardship steward-ship of tho national forests. Working in harmony with the bureau bu-reau of animal industry, the sheep man began a scientific study of his woolly asset. Ho foresaw the annihilation of flocks under a radical forestratlon policy, pol-icy, and while the now conservationists conservation-ists were acquainting themselves with the old forests, the progressive wool grower was breaking away from the standpatter and educating himself. The taste of wool in mutton has been wiped out by constant consumption consump-tion and not b' the more advanced methods of treating tho meat. Tho sheep was found to be the cleanest in its diet of any animal whose meat Is a part of tho dally menu for the nation. It eats tho purest herbs and choicest flowers. A sheep will kneel down at a stream of water and drink. A steer will wade in to his belly. One tuberculin sheep in 500 is the average. Tho bureau of animal industry rarely kills a sheep. The standpatter didn't care whether any one else knew these things. Tho progressive carried these facts to the camp of the government rangers. Pinchot encouraged the homesteader to locate at tho edges of the national Z forests. He encouraged them to own sheep and permits were issued tu them. His idea was that the ranges woro overstocked with sheep and cattle cat-tle to the detriment of the watershed and the timber. The reactionary standpatter stand-patter strengthened him In this belief because of the hereditary hoggishness for boundless ranges. The progressive told the government that lie had no war with the cattle man; that he believed there was sufficient suf-ficient room for both to range the forests; that the cattle range was tho sheep range, and vice versa. Out on the Great American desert, sprawling out of Utah over the state lino into Nevada, many Utah wool growers range their flocks of sheep in winter. 'Tho desert is unfit for farming; farm-ing; it is as untillable as the Sahara. Yet tho Utah wool .growers produce more wealth on this vast waste than tho value of the entire alfalfa crop of the state. The sheep feed on salt grass, sagebrush, bud-brush, black sage, shad-scale and other plants and herbs of the desert. In tho summer the sheep are ranged in tho forests. Here they ' eat the finer grass and herbs and flowers. The cattle, ranging over tho same ground, eat off the coaTser growth, and between the two, the open spaces in tho forest are kept clear, so that at the end of the summer there is no dry growth. Tho ability of the sheep as a mower of undergrowth was commended to Graves and his rangers ad supervisors by Frank R. Gooding, former governor of Idaho, and prominent in the National Na-tional Wool Growers' association, which has thousands of members all over the United States. Gooding suggested sug-gested that in the forests of northern Idaho, where there have been so many (Continued on Page 13.) FIRE-FIGHTING SHEEP. I (Continued from Pago 10.) disastrous fires, sheep from Washington Washing-ton and Oregon bo taken from trains en route to eastern markets and be permitted to nip off the dangerous undergrowth. This he recommended as an experiment, and it will be tried this summer in the Panhandle, flanked on the west by Oregon and Washington and on the east by Montana. Mon-tana. Should this novel experiment prove successful, It is not at all unlikely that the permit system will be revised, re-vised, so as to permit a heavier stocking stock-ing of sheep and cattlo without the overstocking of the range. The forest service dealt with a heavy problem when it came into existence. j The theorists in the new service found ' some of their theories impracticable when put into operation, but they havo gradually brought themselves to a point of keener understanding. The standard of the service is higher, in the estimation of the wool grower, than It was a year or two ago. That is, the progressives think that way. |