red, after fires had
removed their hampering competitors.

There are millions of acres of young lodge-pole forests in the West.
They are almost as impenetrable as canebrakes. It would greatly
increase the rate of growth if these trees were thinned, but it is
probable that this will not be done for many years. Meantime,
if these forests be protected from fire, they will be excellent
water-conservers. When the snows or the rains fall into the lodge-pole
thickets, they are beyond the reach of the extra dry winds. If they
are protected, the water-supply of the West will be protected; and if
they are destroyed, the winds will evaporate most of the precipitation
that falls upon their areas.

I do not know of any tree that better adjusts itself to circumstances,
or that struggles more bravely or successfully. I am hopeful that
before many years the school-children of America will be well
acquainted with the Lodge-Pole Pine, and I feel that its interesting
ways, its struggles, and its importance will, before long, be
appreciated and win a larger place in our literature and also in
our hearts.

Rocky Mountain Forests

It is stirring to stand at the feet of the Rocky Mountains and look
upward and far away over the broken strata that pile and terrace
higher and higher, until, at a distance of twenty-five or thirty
miles, they stand a shattered and snowy horizon against the blue. The
view is an inspiring one from the base, but it gives no idea that this
mountain array is a magnificent wild hanging-garden. Across the
terraced and verdure-plumed garden the eternal snows send their clear
and constant streams, to leap in white cascades between crowning crags
and pines. Upon the upper slopes of this garden are many mirrored
lakes, ferny, flowery glens, purple forests, and crag-piled meadows.

If any one were to start at the foothills in Colorado, where one of
the clear streams comes sweeping out of the mountains to go quietly
across the wide, wide plains, and from this starting-place climb to
the crest of this terraced land of crags, pines, ferns, and flowers,
he would, in so doing, go through many life-zones and see numerous
standing and moving life-forms, all struggling, yet seemingly all
contented with life and the scenes wherein they live and struggle.

The broad-leaf cottonwood, which has accompanied the streams across
the plains, stops at the foothills, and along the river in the
foothills the narrow-leaf cottonwoo