120. Lumbering in the mountains.—Al though the tops of the Rocky Mountains are for the most part bare rock, the lower slopes are cut into hundreds and thousands of little side valleys and gulches, wherever green trees cling to the steep and rocky slopes. Altogether these mountains have tens of thousands of square miles of forest, but because of the difficulty of taking lumber to the distant city markets, only a very small part of the timber has been used. How far is it from the Big Horn Mountains to Chicago? from West Virginia to Chicago? It is hard to take lumber from the moun tains for two reasons: first, in many places the land is too rough for roads to be made; and, second, the streams are too rocky to float the logs. Sometimes small logs are used to build a chute or slide several thousands of feet in length down a mountainside. Upon it other logs can coast down. Sometimes the logs go at such speed that if they jump out of the chute they tear themselves to pieces on the rocks. The only way to stop them at the end of the chute is to have them jump into a pond of water. (Fig. 126.) In other places the lumber, sawed into boards, is floated for miles down the rocky valley in a wooden flume or trough.
121. National forests.— Our Congress very wisely decided to keep many of these forest lands as the property of all the people. The United States Govern ment owns many thousands of square miles of forests covering a large part of the Rocky Mountain region. A part of the United States Department of Agriculture, called the Forest Service, has charge of these forests, and is protecting them until the time comes to use the trees. The forest has two great enemies—over-pasturing and fire. Of these, fire is much the worse.
The National forests are watched and protected by forest rangers. The ranger makes long lonely rounds on foot or on horseback, or more recently by airplane, looking for fires, because one fire may kill centuries of growth. He climbs high cliffs, mountain peaks, and even lookout towers, so that he can look far, far away across the forest. If he should see through his spy glass the smoke from a small fire, he would signal for help to put out the blaze before it could spread. The fire fight is all planned in advance. Axes, shovels, and other tools are in readiness. The places to work have all been planned, but even with the best of care the fires sometimes leap through the tops of the evergreen trees and run with the wind, killing millions of fine trees. Careless camp ers, miners, and sheep herders start some of the fires, and some are started by lightning. The forester tries to protect the forest so that it will be a forest for all time.
122. Vacation land.—The Rocky Moun tains are a glorious vacation land for those who love mountain scenery, and who enjoy wild, uninhabited places. On the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains near Colorado Springs is Pike's Peak, to the top of which runs a railway that enables people easily and comfortably to reach its summit, over 14,000 feet high. If you love high climbing, there are snowpeaks and glaciers waiting for you. If you love to climb only a little, there are wooded spurs and lower mountains to explore.
If you like to fish, you can wade up the rocky bed of trout streams in which perhaps no other person has fished for a year.
Many of the more beautiful and wonderful places of this region have been set aside as parks by the American and Canadian governments. In this way such . places belong to all the people for all time. The Yellowstone Park, in the corners of three states, is larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware com bined, and is one of the most famous of the National parks. Since no one may hunt there, bears, elk and bison abound, and some are as tame as cows, and come close to visitors to be fed.
Yellowstone Park has wonderful geysers, and there also are waterfalls and volcanic mountains of glass-like rock. The won derfully colored walls of the canyon of the Yellowstone River are more than 1000 feet high. It is too bad that, for most of the people of the United States, it is such a long journey from home to this land of de light.
123. Agriculture.—When the first miners • came to the Rocky Mountains food was very expensive because it had to be brought from such great distances. The first farmers in valleys near the mining towns or camps sold their fruits and vegetables at prices that were several times as high as prices in New York or Chicago. This made farming very profitable in the mountain valleys and more farmers came, until finally there was a sad day when the crops were so large that the home market did not need all that there was to sell. Some had to be sent away across the Great Plains to the eastward. Before that time the farmer in the mountain valley had been able to get eastern market prices for his produce, plus the railroad freight and the wagon haul to the mining camp. But when he sent his goods to the eastern mar kets, he had to take the eastern price, less the cost of carriage to that market. This cut into his profit so much that he now raises grass and hay in many Rocky Mountain valleys. He could produce many other crops if only he could market them profitably.