Show the rail I 1 hp ipac 1 corner I 1 S lic F s 0 Q lul L ul lid this Is centennial year not news to anyone in years utah has undergone an industrial and agricultural agricula ural development that Is the envy of all she was blessed train the beginning with an all abundance or natural resources without which this development could never levei have been h F feezel ea lazed V vast of 0 waiting to bo be fashioned into homes and of business clear running streams with which to irrigate the vast ast acreage of virgin soil an abundance of wild game that tided tho the hardy pioneers over oer many a lean period endless acres of oc grazing land laau that has made the name of utah synonymous with the livestock industry Ind to this blessed land god led brigham young and his little group or of pioneers on july 24 1847 hardly had president young spoken the now lamous famous this is tile the place before ditches were being dug crops planted and buildings erected from that humble beginning evolved utah as we know her today yes we are proud of utah and tho strides slie she has taken so proud that wo we are inviting the entire nation to visit us this year ear to seo see the pro gres gressle swo swe s wo have made not news either what has this development cost us hard haid work surely disappointments and trials many of them human lives yes yea r some of those too dollars and cents well who can say just what the financial cost it was waa worth it whatever it might have been As each man selected ills his land and began tile the process of cultivation he employed various variant implements and tools crude chuao at first later refined and efficient depreciation pre clation on these theao would come under tho the cost item and it was IV worth orth that too then hero here is tho the item of depreciation on the use of the natural resources wo we have used jointly to accomplish our enviable record wo we must consider that too practically all our grazing lands have been so BO heavily over used lit in the development of our 11 estock industry that they now italy will support only a frac fraction tiou of tho the numbers originally grazed well depreciation on our grazing resource the same as a worn out plow share is depreciation on oil a now new plow plo tile tho of sa timber found la in such abundance a century ago have now been reduced to such an ex continued on paea dage four our 1 the peoples corner continued from page one tent that timber Is now one of the critical items in many parts of our state on our timber resource and what has happened to our I 1 irrigation r rl waters during early history the streams ran sufficient water for irrigation of crops during the growing season so regulated by the forested forest d watersheds that floods and va water ter were no problem then ta a the plant cover became de plated through overgrazing destructive tive timber cutting and burning the streams began to run higher in the spring and diminish or disappear in late summer to solve this problem pio blem reservoirs were built to cath the high waters and hold the water until it was wag needed now we find that these are tilling filling up with slit silt at an alarming rate silt bill that Is carried down from the higher watersheds by waters unimpeded by vegetation ot of a water hilding nature altogether too many of our watersheds today serve better as aa a on which waters get a running start than they do as aa a sponge to soak up and regulate stream flow so we can charge that to depreciation ot of watersheds depreciation of grazing resource timber resource and watershed resource can we say aay of these cost items as we did of the others that oat lit it was wa worth what it cost this year we are all dressed up in our centennial finery tor for our visitors we vvo have heeded the call 11 ll to clean up paint uy fix up we can point with pride to our remarkable tle de in everything except conservation of our natural resources its too bad we dont have a freshly aisted shed under which we could hide bide the old worn out natural resource toot tool this year which the visitors parade could point to our watersheds watershed through our state but since our timber stands and our swing we dont the centennial lands with as aa much pride as year be a good one in which we point today to tho the rest of 0 our to 10 a tart start fixing up this tool so that la in the years to come we state kenneth Q bower |