It is estimated that there are probably 350 people living on the Forest outside of the towns. These are principally miners or small ranch-owners living along the rivers in the lower altitudes.
Slowly but surely the people are awakening to the great value of the natural resources that are being conserved in the National Forests. In the Tahoe Reserve the preservation of the forest cover is essential to the holding of snow and rain-fall, preventing rapid run-off, thereby conserving much of what would be waste and destructive flood-water, until it can be used for irrigation and other beneficial purposes.
Many streams of great power possibilities rise and flow through the Tahoe Forest Reserve, such as the Truckee, Little Truckee, Yuba and American rivers. Working in conjunction with the U.S. Reclamation Service the Truckee General Electric Company uses the water that flows out of Lake Tahoe down the Truckee River for the development of power. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, of San Francisco, controls the waters of the South Yuba river, and its Colgate plant is on the main Yuba, though it obtains some of its water supply from the North Yuba. Lake Spaulding, one of the largest artificial lakes in the world, is a creation of this same company. It is situated near Emigrant Gap and is used for the development of power.
The Northern Water and Power Company controls the Bowman reservoir and a string of lakes on the headwaters of Canyon Creek, a branch of the South Yuba river. As yet its power possibilities are not developed.
Through the activities of these companies electricity and water for irrigation are supplied to towns and country regions contiguous to their lines, and they have materially aided in the development of the Sacramento Valley.
Only about five per cent. of the Reserve is barren land, and this is mostly situated at a high elevation above timber line. The tree growth is excellent, and under proper direction reproduction could be made all that any one could desire. Fully twenty per cent., however, of the present Reserve is covered with chaparral. Practically all of this originally was timbered. The chaparral has grown up because nothing was done at the proper time to foster reproduction over acres that had been cut. Systematic and scientific efforts are now being made to remedy this condition, the rangers being encouraged to study the trees, gather seeds from the best of their type, plant and cultivate them. Tree cutting is now so regular as to obtain by natural reproduction a second crop on the logged-over areas. Where natural reproduction fails planting is resorted to. Thus it is hoped, in time, to replant all the logged-over areas now owned by the government, serving the double purpose of conserving the water-supply and providing timber for the needs of the future. Much of the timber-land, however, of the Tahoe region, is patented to private owners. Little, if anything, is being done towards reforestation on these private tracts. Legal enactments, ultimately, may produce effective action along this needed line.
As has elsewhere been shown the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Tahoe region. Had it not been for the timber secured so readily from the Tahoe slopes the mining operations of Virginia City, Gold Hill and Dayton would have been seriously retarded and crippled. As it was the Tahoe trees were transferred as mining-timbers for propping up the immense and continuous excavations of that vast series of honey-combings underground, the products of which revivified the gold supply of the world.
Tahoe timber also has contributed much to the upbuilding of the towns and country farms on the whole upper Pacific Coast and interior regions of Northern California, and today much of its timber finds its way to San Francisco and other Pacific Coast markets.
At Floriston, on the Truckee River, a mill is in successful operation, using Tahoe fir for the making of paper. Red and white fir, which are practically useless for lumber, are found to make excellent wrapping and tissue papers, and thus, from being unremunerative products of our forests, become sources of income. After planing off the bark, the wood is made into small chips, about a half inch square, and an eighth of an inch thick. These chips are then "digested" by a process of mixing with acids and cooking, through which it becomes "wood pulp." Different processes produce different pulps, two of which are mixed together, allowed to flow out on a very fine wire screen nine feet wide, revolving at a rate of 300 feet a minute, with a "jigging" movement from side to side. This makes all the fibers lie flat. They are then sent through steel rollers, the water squeezed out, and finally carried over and around twenty-five revolving steam-heated cylinders which completely dry the paper and put the needed gloss or finish on it.
The rainfall on the Tahoe Reserve averages about fifty inches annually, the most frequent rains occurring between October and May. Necessarily there is much snow-fall on the higher regions. Further down the snow disappears in the early spring, say March, but in the upper altitudes it remains until late June, with perpetual snow in the sheltered portions of the topmost peaks.