Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/182

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164 John Minto. am, ' ' was outlined next day while I blazed the way. The last stanza gives my view of the party— reduced to twelve at the summit, and one resident of Eastern Oregon, who visited them the day they crossed the summit : "When, in camp, for food or rest, this party did convene, The song, the story, or the jest, were not their only theme; From game and range and public lands To the world's wants their talk expands. How Europe on our plows depends And to what shores our trade extends. Fair woman's beauty, man's good name, The statesman's wisdom, soldier's fame, The school, the pulpit, and the pen Passed in review before them then. Such were the boys of Santiam, on mountain top or shady glen ; Include our cooks, our party, then, were pretty girls and honest men." It was a pleasant party, and no suffering was made mani- fest till the work was done. One man was suffering for to- bacco, and started after breakfast, reaching home at Gates at 6 p. M., thus passing the range on foot in about eleven hours. The men who did this labor and those who put up the money of course gave way to the railroad, and that got easily $20,000.00 worth of work on the line covered by the rails between Mill City and Detroit, and the result is that both the railroad and the forest reserve are impediments in the way of opening the shortest and easiest passway yet known from Salem to Central Oregon. CHAPTER X. REFORESTATION V. FOREST RESERVATION. I have thought since I first saw a forest policy alluded to that it was time many others beside myself were looking in the same direction, but naturally I took the British view of individual pride in woodland which leads land owners to plant every piece of waste or rough land to timber; and this adds greatly to the beauty of an English landscape. Even the sour and boggy lands of Scotland have been both beauti- fied and enhanced in value. Pride in sylviculture was stimu- lated there, too, by the biting writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson