University of Idaho School of Forestry - Forester Yearbook (Moscow, ID)

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NEW STATE FOQESTER Arthur W. Middleton of Weiser was recently appointed to the position of State Forester for Idaho, succeeding Ben E. Bush who had held the office since its creation eight years ago. Mr. Middleton is a graduate of the College of Agriculture, University of Idaho, class of 1932. Before entering the university in Feb- ruary, 1929, he had attended the Oregon School of Forestry for one year. He is a member of Alpha Zeta, honorary agricultural fraternity. Mr. Middleton is well acquainted with the forestry needs of Idaho and the relation of the forests to the agricultural and grazing in- dustries of the State. He has had a wide range of practical experience in the United States Forest Service where he is highly re- garded. For the time being, at least, he will keep his ofiice at Moscow. Arthm' W. Middleton Tractor Course Proves Popular The course in tractor operation instituted the spring of 1932 at the Idaho School of For- estry has been continued the current year but with a new 35 Caterpillar Tractor furnished through the courtesy of the Simmons Tractor and Equipment Company, Pullman, Washing- ton and the Caterpillar Tractor Company. This year, however, more attention has been given to theory, and Professor Hobart Beres- ford, head of the Department of Agricultural Engineering of the University, has been con- ducting a very much worthwhile course for the forestry students interested, in co-opera- tion with the logging engineering department of the School of Forestry. The Tractor Short Course, supervised by Mr. Elmer Humphrey of the University En- gineering Shops, was given early in the win- ter and this afforded the forestry students op- portunity to obtain preliminary training. Students enrolled in the course took turns at driving the tractor about the campus and nurseries, doing odds and ends of jobs for experience in tractor operation. The class made quick work of some undesirable fruit trees growing in the nursery and performed a real service in towing a road scraper about the grounds. An effort is being made to obtain auxiliary equipment in the way of road and trail build- ing machinery so that the School Forest on Moscow Mountain can be improved and made more accessible. Blasting Demonstration Practical In order to give Idaho forestry students first hand information in the use of explosives in forest work, a short course consisting of a series of lectures and terminating with a prac- tical field demonstration was conducted the middle of April this year for the benefit of logging engineering students. The course was arranged through the courtesy of Mr. A. J. McAdams of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Kz Company and in co-operation with Professors L. J. Smith and Hobart Beresford of the Agri- cultural Engineering Departments of the State College of Washington, Pullman, and the University of Idaho, respectively. A south slope of Moscow Mountain ridge was the scene of activities for the field demon- stration which embraced three phases-blast- ing stumps for right-of-way, blasting rocks for forest roads and trails, and blasting stand- ing trees and snags. The care and use of ex- plosives was particularly stressed and the students handled and placed the dynamite under competent supervision. It is planned to continue this course another year and to con- duct the field work on the School Forest where it is desired to remove stumps and trees for road construction and also rocks projecting along the present road. The inclusion of this course to accompany the instruction in tractor operation gives Ida- ho logging engineering majors considerable practical field work. 23

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VICE PRESIDENT PLANTS SPRUCE ON CAMPUS. HONORABLE CHARLES C. CURTIS, as vice president of the United States, added to the University's circle of trees planted by distinguished citizens when, on Wednesday, October 12, 1932, he planted an Engelmann spruce on the campus. The planting site is conspicuously located directly in front of the Administration Building, and the Engelmann spruce, a species native to Idaho, is a valu- able addition to the landscape of the campus. Vice President Curtis was visiting northern Idaho on his trip through western United States and was able to adjust his schedule to visit the University of Idaho. During the tree planting ceremonies he was accompanied by Mr. E. T. Whitla of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Other trees oiiicially established by citizens of note are the 'Roosevelt Tree, a Colorado Blue Spruce, planted by Theodore Roosevelt April 10, 19113 the Taft Tree, a Port Orford Cedar, commemorating the visit October 4, 1911 of William Howard Taft to the campusg and the l'Marshall Tree, a red oak, planted November 17, 1917, by the then Vice President of the United States, Thomas R. Marshall. Two additional trees enjoying the environment of the foregoing mentioned trees are a George Washington Memorial Elm planted by the University of Idaho Faculty Women's Club on November 17, 1931, and a concolor fir, also planted as a George Washington Memorial by Paradise Lodge No. 17, A. F. Sz A. M., Mos- cow, Idaho, on April 10, 1931. Honorable Charles C. Curtis LEARN EROM THE TREES p When you stop to think about trees, all that they withstand, all the beauty that they shed, all the good that they do and comfort that they give-do you wonder that people love them? If human beings possessed many of the characteristics of a tree, what wonderful folks they would be. The tree pushes its root deep and firm in the soil. How many folks need to do the same, need to have their convic- tions, their opinions deeply imbedded in jirm and solid ground? The tree grows pointing ever upwards. How many folks keep their aims, their ideals always pointing upward? As the tree grows it spreads, throwing out its branches which give shade and comfort to the weary traveler who rests beneath it. As your advantages increase, as your opportunities grow and your possessions multiply, how much help, shade, and comfort do you give to the weary and disheartened soul who looks to you? Standing firm and erect, the tree withstands both the scorching heat of summer and the chilling blasts of winter. How ma-ny folks are spoiled by glory, the heat of success, or crushed completely by the chill and frost of disaster? Don't only love trees but learn from them. They are among the greatest of N ature's many teachers. 22

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PAUL BUNYAN'S BIG TOP ERNEST E. HUBERT P'rofesso'r of Forestry The year that Paul Bunyan began logging in the wilds of Idaho remain-ed in his memory a long time-like skunk odor in a mackinaw. It was in July, during that famous period known as the Three Winters, that he bullied his snarling crews up the snow packed slopes of the Coeur d'Alenes. And it was the Fourth of July when his men, tired and cold, slashed the last tree on the slope and, topping the ridge, gazed at what is now known as Fourth- of-July Canyon. It was here that Paul ordered a huge white pine tree blazed and dated to mark the progress of this day's work and, as his voice roared through the bleak forest, it shook the snow in avalanches from the trees, almost burying the crew. The weather was steadily getting worse. It was what old timers called a hell-bender. It had hair on it. Snow soon buried the tallest white pines from sight and the loud booming of the frozen tree trunks as they split wide open sounded through those narrow draws like cannon shots. The next day Paul tried to mark a few choice trunks for cutting but found they were frozen so solid that his usual method of pinching sections out of the bark with his fingers failed Hatly. At last the camps had to be closed down. The logging operation had been hung up for two weeks and Paul's lumberjacks, soured with cards and yarn spinning, were roaring for action. Like caged cougars, they paced back and forth in the snow-muifled bunk houses until their boot calks wore deep tracks in the rough boards and their strong language and chewing snoos both gave out. Paul knew his men and he knew something had to be done. Yet it was getting colder and the mercury had crawled out of the bottom of every thermometer in camp and no one knew how cold it was. Joe Mufraw was brought in frozen as stiff' as a peavy and had to be thawed out in the cook's oven. And, only yesterday, the water in the sheet iron tank serving as teakettle on the stove, froze so rapidly when Sourdough carelessly opened the cook shack door that the ice was still hot and steaming when he removed the cover. Something had to be done! Paul, pacing the office shack, was tearing up a couple of old flywheel belts in despair when suddenly he shouted: By the old roary-eyed son-of-a-rig- slinger. I've got it! Bundling up so that only his bushy eyebrows showed, he rushed out and strapped snowshoes on Babe the Blue OX. Then roaring defiance to the storm he and Babe dis- appeared westward into the white fury of wind and snow. For three days the blizzard winds howled about the storm-sieged camp like a pack of timber wolves, tearing at the eaves and straining at the doors and windows, until the snow drifted higher than the roof ridge. The frost was six inches thick on the lightless glass and the smoke barely bulging out of the holes in the snow above the smoke pipes before freezing solid, plunged into the crusted drifts with a whish and a thud. Above the roar of the blizzard on the even- ing of the third day a strange rumbling and crunching was heard and Sourdough Sam pok- ing his nose out through a crack near the ridgepole of the cook shack, saw a strange sight. Paul, covered with icicles and snow, only his head and shoulders showing above the drifts, his arms revolving like a snow fan, was seen breaking the trail for Babe who was covered with huge poles, sections of piping, ropes and canvas until only her head and tail show-ed. That night the storm shivered to a stand- still and the next morning cracks began to ap- pear in the snow where you would guess the doorways were. The gypo boys were franti- cally tunneling out and it wasn't long before Paul had his men sinking their teeth into one of the biggest jobs of his career-rigging a huge tent over a quarter section of snow- buried timber. The job was a holy terror. But so was Paul. - The snow was so deep that the sheer can- yons between the high ridges were hard to lo- cate and twenty of the best snoos eaters tug- ging at a guy rope stepped off the high ridge into Deception Creek and plunged out of sight. They burrowed through the drifts all that winter and Paul did not find them until next spring as they emerged at the mouth of the Little North Fork. Their camp sites can still be found on the little flats staggering the main stream every half mile or so. It was not long before his men knew why Paul had brought so many sections of pipe for he strung a pipe line from his sawmill to the big tent and in no time he had steam filling the huge canvas and hissing out of every seam. He steamed the timber for six days and nights, figuring that the snow would be melted by that time and the trees would be thawed out enough to cut down, but surprises w-ere in store for both Paul and his men. Hell and high water, bellowed one bundle stiff, these match stems are tougher than dry hemlock knots. With slush up to their arm- pits and five gallon oil cans as Palouser lights to cut the gloom as they felled the trees under the big top, Paul's timber beasts kept Babe the Blue OX busy shoving the logs from the tent to the sawmill through a long tunnel shaped by the use of Paul's invention, the snow auger. fContinued on page 511