The Desolation of the Arid Belt
A pioneer reflects on four decades in Washington and Idaho, warning that unchecked grazing and timber harvesting are turning fertile mountain valleys into sagebrush barrens.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Forty years of my life has been spent west of the Rocky mountains. Over thirty of these years have been passed in the mountains and valleys of Idaho and Washington. It has long been my opinion that it would conserve the best interests of the American people if all the natural forest lands on the mountain ranges were under the control of the general government. Table lands in the arid belt hills, vales and mountain sides, once covered knee deep with nutritious grasses, are now barren wastes, roamed over by bands of horses all the year round, grazed off by cattle, herded over by sheep, each animal in its turn gnawing into the ground such scattering stunted vegetation as dares to show itself. The common sage-brush not being edible, fills the space formerly occupied by grass and flowers. If any doubt the truth of this picture positive proof is at hand. Had the Knights of the Rope and Branding Iron possessed a little of the genuine intelligence, integrity and patriotism accredited to the average American citizen, the forests on our mountain streams would not have been given to the woodman’s ax, the fire brand of the sheep herder, prospector and straggling Indian, shortening our water supply.
“The common sage-brush not being edible, fills the space formerly occupied by grass and flowers.”
A. M. Miller’s 1891 letter sounds the alarm on ecological degradation and water scarcity long before the 'environmental movement' became mainstream. It reflects the exact land-use conflicts—grazing versus conservation—that still define the politics of the American West.
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