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Show WASHINGTON FROM OUR CONGRESSMAN W. IC GRANGER Forest Reseeding Program Most if not all of the wealth produced in our State and Nation Na-tion comes from two major kinds of resources; namely, renewable resources and non-renewable resources. re-sources. The non-renewable resources re-sources consist of such resources as oil, coal, and other minerals that are mined or extracted from mother earth and in general are gone from us forever when they have once been used. The renewable resources are those that grow upon the earth's surface such as timber, forage, and crops of all kinds that are the products of the soil. These are the resources that mankind is so vitally interested in because be-cause it is upon these that all forms of animal life including man must depend for subsistence and existence. At various times and in various vari-ous places throughout the history his-tory of the world, either man or beast has destroyed these resources re-sources to a point where they could no longer exist upon them which has resulted in either wars for expansion or elimination through starvation. As a plan of habitation for man our country is comparatively new and up to the present time the population that subsists upon the renewable resources has not reached a point where conditions have become crowded. So far in our history as a nation, we have enjoyed an abundance of almost everything that goes to make life comfortable and enjoyable. It has been because of this abund ance of resources that we have been able to turn the great world conflict just coming to a close in our favor. It is time, however, that we have made deep inroads into the resources both renewable and non-renewable. Many of our mines have been or are being depleted and much of our soil has been denuded of its cover to a point where it has been or is rapidly being eroded away. The bright side of the picture, however, is that it is not yet too late to do something about these conditions, particularly as thev apply to our renewable resources re-sources such as our forests, range lands, and our farms. How can this be done? During the past week it has been my privilege to visit thousands thou-sands of acres of sagebrush lands that have either been plowed with wheat-land plows or railed bv other means to eliminate the brush competition for moisture in these areas and planted to crested wheatgrass or other drouth resistant species Most of these plantings are outstanding outstand-ing successes and in addition to reducing or almost completely eliminating the erosion problem which is so serious in our State these areas are now producing as much as ten times or more in forage for livestock as they were producing before this planting was done. The areas visited were on lands under the administration of he U S Forest Service, the Grazing Service and some on privately owend range lands. The success on all of these lands was out-standing out-standing where proper methods of tillinjf. planting and protection protec-tion have been applied. Utah has many thousands and perhaps millions of acres of sagebrush sage-brush range lands where there is little question but what grazing capacities could be increased though range reseeding as has been done on these sizeable test areas. This would not only add to the productive wealth of our State, but would help to reduce soil erosion which is eroding a-vvay a-vvay so much of our valuable top soil. |
