Transcription:
ARNOLD ARBORETUM. Lodge Pole Pines and Spruces which protect the sources of tributaries of the Missouri and the Saskatchawan
dependent entirely for their water on the snow which falls on these mountains and protected by these forests. From these mountains
issue the Cut Bank and Milk Rivers, the latter owing to its great length and the exceeding aridity of the country through
which it flows the most important stream of this region, although the Cut Bank supplies much of the water used by the Blockfoot
Indians and by cattle men located east of the proposed Reserve. North of Milk River flow from the melting snow fields and
glaciers at their sources the St. Mary's, Swift Current and Belly Rivers, the first passing into Canada after flowing thirty
miles through the territory of the United States. This region which is supposed to contain many mineral deposits, will soon
be invaded by large numbers of prospectors and miners, and its coniferous forests will invariably of injured and perhaps destroyed
by the fires which have followed settlement from one end of the Rocky Mountains to the other. These forests are not commercially
valuable in the sense that they contain timber which can be profitably Shipped out of the region, but they can furnish sufficient
forest-products to carry on local mines and supply any agricultural population which may live on the streams in this part
of Montana. If they are allowed to burn missing operation will be crippled and the Settlers along these rivers will be deprived
during many months of every year for themselves and their animals; for even now ARNOLD ARBORETUM. 6 Milk River is only
a sluggish stream through much of the year, and in periods of drought is reduced to a series of muddy water holes. In this
proposed Reserve west of the continental divide are the great north fork of Plat Head River and many of the smaller tributaries
of that stream. The forests here, under the influence of a mure humid climate, are much heavier than those on the eastern
slopes of the Rocky Mountains and are composed of a larger number of varieties of trees; and here are stores of spruce, fir,
tamarack, cedar and cotton-wood which in time can be made to play an important part in the development of Montana. These forests,
too, in protecting the headwaters of turoulent mountain streams reduce the damage of floods and render their fertile lower
valleys habitable. In that part of this proposed Reserve which is east of the continental divide there is now no settled land
out west of the continental divide two hundred and seventy-two quarter sections have been entered, as shown by the Tract Books
in the General Land Office on the 20th of January of the present year; these entries are principally on the bottom lands of
the north fork of the flat Head River where there are considerable bodies of arable land 5. The Lewis Clark Forest Reserve.
This proposed Reserve embraces Both slopes of the continental divide in Montana and extends from near the line of the Great
Northern Railroad southward nearly to the forty-seventy degree of north latitude. It has an estimated area of 2,928,080 acres
and includes an ex- 02231