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Show Protect Natures Big Playgrounds Notwithstanding the fact that Forest For-est Protection Week is being observed this week, from a point of past comparisons com-parisons it is just 25 to 40 years too late. However, the lessons that are being sent out by the forest service, advocating more care, is timely and if every person interested in the preservation pres-ervation of the great forests which serve as watersheds, afford protection protec-tion for the denizens of the wilds and pleasure for all who would seek God's own parks for pleasure and happiness. The following article, compiled at the offices of the Manti Forest at Ephraim, gives interesting interest-ing data concerning our own forests: At the time of the settlement of Utah by the pioneers our forests, although al-though not nearly so extensive as the forests of the northwest or other timbered sections of the United States, did contain a supply of timber tim-ber which, had it been protected from fire and wisely used, would have fur- nished sufficient lumber for all local needs. As stated above, since the forests have been burned following the settlement of this country, it i would seem logical to assume that j their destruction was due solely to 1 the carlessness of the whtie people. Fires started by lightning and Indians In-dians apparently had done but little damage in this section, and it is known beyond a doubt that the fires doing the greatest damage to the watersheds and which destroyed 'the j largest amount of timber resulted ' from carelessness on the part of the white people who went into the mountains moun-tains to selure timber, to graze their stock, or to hunt or fish. The first fire within the area now embraced in the Manti Forest, as nearly as can be learned, was in Manti Man-ti Canyon and occurred in the fall of 1855 or 1856. Some young men who were fishing at the Cottonwoods', while cooking some of their catch over an open fire, permitted the sparks to escape into the brush and dry grass nearly. This fire spread rapidly to the east, south, and west, and being fanned by a brisk wind it destroyed practically all the timber to the top of the ridge and covered something like 3,000 acres. Several millions of feet of timber was thus destroyed, ' and later on the area was burned over a second time and this, together with the heavy grazing, graz-ing, .started the floods which so nearly near-ly ruined Manti. Every watershed within the Manti Forest has suffered from occasional fires. Generally speaking the greatest great-est damage to our forests occurred from about 1885 to 1902. In Twelve Mile Canvon the first heavy fire occurred oc-curred about 1885. Timber men, according ac-cording to renort. wished to make a road south through the timber toward to-ward Red Pine Camp. In construct-; construct-; ing the road they burned as much of the brush and dead stuff as they j rnuld and it is thought allowed their f irs to get away which resulted in a largre fire which burned the Red (Continued on page 5) |