To Check the Reckless Ravages of the Ruthless Denuders of Our California Forests John Muir and the Other Members of the Forestry Board Are Now in the Field. Forestry Commissioner Muir On the Work of Deundation [sic]. Forces That Are at Work To Lay Waste Our Timber.

THE .EXAMINER. SAN FBANCTSCOs STJ my ,vt MOBNTJr SEPTEMBER 20, 1896. 23 John oaffi fli MOW THE DESTROYERS HAVE WORKED THEll WAY THROUGH THE SANTA CRUZ REDWOODS. forces That Are at Work To Lay Waste Our Timber- jcaused by sheep men. Incredible numbers of sheep are driven to the mountain pastures every summer, and their course is ever marked by desolation. Every wild garden is trodden idown, the shrubs are stripped of leaves as if devoured by locusts and the woods are burned. Running fires are set everywhere, with a view .of iVi tag -.tlie gTotiiid t.f prostrate tmtiks, tO facilitate the: movements of the flocks and improve the pastures. The entire forest belt is thus swept and devastated from one extremity of the range to the other, and, with the exception of the resinous pinus contorta, sequoia [suffers most of all. Indians burn off the iunderbrush in certain localities to facilitate jdeer-iunting, mountaineers and lumbermen i carelessly allow their; camp fires to run, but the jfires of the sheep men, or muttoners, form more ithan 90 per cent of all destructive fires that iravage the Sierra forests. It appears, therefore, that notwithstanding lOur forest king might live on gloriously in [Nature\u27s keeping it is rapidly vanishing before the fire and steel of man, and, unless protective imeasures are speedily invented and applied, in a few decades at the farthest all that will be left of sequoia gigautea will be a few hacked and scarred monuments. JOHN MUIR. an economic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of Government. Only of late years, by means of forest reservations, has the simplest groundwork for available legislation been laid, while in many of the finest groves every species of destruction is still moving on with accelerated speed. In the course of my explorations I found no fewer than five mills located on or near the lower edge of the Sequoia belt, all of which were cutting considerable quantities of big tree lumber. Most of the Fresno group are doomed to feed the mills recently erected near them, and a company of lumbermen are now cutting the magnificent forest on Kings river. In these milling operations waste far exceeds use, for after the choice young manageable trees on any given spot have been felled, the woods are fired to clear the ground of limbs and refuse, with reference to further operations, and, of course, most of the seedlings and saplings are destroyed. I v These raid] rqvr&as; iiOw:vei\ are smutt as compared \u27 wira ffie comprehensive destruction caused by sheepmen. Incredible numbers of sheep are driven to the mountain pastures every summer and their course is ever marked by desolation. Every wild, garden is trodden down, the shrubs are\u27 stripped of leaves as if devoured by locusts, and the woods are burned. Running fires are set everywhere with a view to clearing the ground of prostrate trunks, to facilitate the movements of the flocks and improve the pastures. The entire forest belt except the Park reservation now pfo] tected by the Government during the summer months, is thus swept and devastated from one extremity of the range to the other, and with the exception of a resinous species of pine the Sequoia suffers most of all. Indians burn off the underbrush in certain localities to facilitate deer-hunting, mountaineers and lumbermen carelessly allow their camp- fires to run, but the fires of the sheepmen form more than 90 per cent of all destructive fires that range the great Sierra forests. In Mr. Muir\u27s judgment the giant Sequoia is rapidly passx.. ,ing away in consequence of the ravages of fire and the lum- J l/bermen. Unless protective measures be speedily invented [ Sand applied says he, in a few decades at the farthest alii jlthat will be left of the Sequoia gigantea will be a few hackedf Wid scarred monuments. The losses by forest fires have been almost incomprehensible. According to P. M. Campbell, once statistician of the State Board of Forestry, now abolished, the loss by forest fires in the one year 1890, approximated $15,000,000, simply in the timber suppply.. And there have been several years since then when losses nearly reached that figure. Wherever fires have been frequent the forest is ruined. The growth of a thousand years has been destroyed—not used to build up towns and titles and make valuable in the form of lumber, but recklessly and wantonly wasted. The burning of large trees and\u27 (underbrush is by no means the full extent of the damage. A forest that has been destroyed by fire or ax will come u to life again if given half a chance. Around the stumt.of a tree that .has been cut new shoots spring up and a vigorous second growth takes the place of the fdi-est that bop been felled* But where sheep run there Is no new growtl] up from the seed are destroy then does one escape the general devastation and attain a size that puts it beyond tht Inside the lines of the The tender shoots that spring d every year and only now and reach of grazing bands, new National Park, the seedlings have now had a chance, aid iri some places the ground is thickly sprinkled with the) little green shoots: Had the Sheep been driven througtj the park\u27 reservation as was the custom for many years thfere.woufd not have been a green thing left in their.\u27wake, j But lbwiiTibe twenty years before thfJo little ..lo;;. .,,,\u27. . \u27.. ., &TJ r;; \..: riiHig* -Jkj-b*: feiBt ureserveFS ol. the water supply, and it will; bo hun- of years before ttey can fully take the placVof the fd\u27fest that has been killed. And this renewal oS forest growth is going on only within the comparatively small area reserved for the national parks —about 1,000,000 acres. Elsewhere the work of destruction is jnchecked. v The redwood acreage of Humboldt county in 1890 was estimated 538,000, containing about 53,800,000,000 feet of redwood lumber. But the saws, and the axes, and the modern tree- popping machinery have been busy tiiere—tremendously busy, during the past two years especially—and somewhere between 200,000,000 and 300,000,000 feet of lumber have been cut annually. The same methods that produce desolation have been followed here as elsewhere. No attempt is made to preserve the young trees. Everything falls ruthlessly. No thought of the future is taken. In Fresno county there is a similar tale to tell. Fresno\u27s lumber belt comprises over 2,000 square, miles, and upon it are some of the finest trees ever grown. But they are falling, falling, steadily,rutblessly, and stumps and only arid land and dried-up springs take their place. With intelligent forestry all this might be different. It is not too late to save the California forests—that is, to save them by means of systematic renewal. Dr. B. E. Fer- now of the Division of Forestry of the Agricultural Department at Washington and one of the best-known authorities on forestry in the world, says, in a recent article in Garden and Forest that all the great forests of California and the Northwest may even now be perpetuated for many years to come by the adoption by the various States of a systematic system of preservation and renewal. The horse is not yet stolen. It is not yet too late to lock the stable door. He \u27advises the following of the system adopted so successfully In Germany and other European countries, the appointment of forestry officials to guard the principal forest tracts, •the regulation of timber cutting so that the young trees may be preserved, and the planting of young trees from established forestry stations. . California has now no Board of Forestry, but the tree stations left as a legacy of the board still exist and are being maintained by the University of California. With some system of scientific forest supervision the young trees in these nursery stations could be made of good use in following out the suggestions of Dr. Fernow. During the last years of the State Board of Forestry considerable good work was done in the way of appointing forest wardens and in urging upon the lumber companies the importance of reformation of their wasteful methods of destroying both pld and young trees. But the wardens were almost powerless to ferret out the men \j\u27ho set the forest fires. There were several arrests -but-co:-\u27-foyor «s? practically impossible, owing to the difficulty of securing witnesses or direct evidence of any sort. In advanced public opinion is the only hope of the State for the saving of its forests. The people must learn the importance of a proper forestry system, that not only may future generations not want for lumber, but that the streams that rise in the Sierras be not dried at their sources. California has been awakened to at least a partial recognition of her danger says Allen Kelly, the well-known newspaper man, who was employed by the State Forestry Board to investigate this subject, by the necessity of organizing and perfecting a system of irrigation fofjhie development of arid plains. The forests of the Sierra Nevada are the national reservoirs for the irrigation of the San Joaquin valley. Hitherto the mountains have been left to the sheepherder and the millman, who have wrought destruction unheeded and unchecked. Sheep raising and timber cutting are legitimate pursuits and entitled to fan- treatment, but as conducted in California for many years they have not been conducive to the general welfare. The millman has slashed the forests recklessly, wasting more than he used and not confining his operations to his own property. The sheepherder, caring only for pasturage, has set fire to the brush, annually burning off the young growth and killing the large trees. The seedlings and shoots that escaped the forest .fires were destroyed by the sheep. And .so not only has the mature forest been greatly injured, but the total extinction of the forest growth made inevitable unless the work of devastation be stopped. With the co-operation and support of the men who have formed the Sierra Club it should be possible to arouse the people of California from their apathy and create a public opinion strong enough to be recognized as an imperative de mand for prompt and effective protection of the forests. It is not a sentimental love of nature that moves these men to organize for the preservation of the Sierra timber be it, although they undoubtedly find pleasure in looking upon the mountains undefaced by the hand of man, but a wise and forethoughtful regard for the welfare and prosperity of California, and a realization of the fact that the development of the State\u27s great agricultural possibilities depends upon the conservation and utilization of the water supply stored in the natural reservoirs of the Sierra Nevadas. The big lenses which Alvan Clark, the famous optician, has been making for the Yerkes telescope at the University of Chicago are completed and ready to be shipped as soon as the building there is ready Jo receive them. The lenses are the la!g--st in the worl.d, 15emg forty inches in \u3c31ariafer.j~ while those of the famous Lick telescope are only thirty-six inches. Some idea of their value may be had from the fact that if the building is not got in shape to receive them this summer they will be held over until another year, because the owner would not dare to take the risk of sending them in cold weather, on account of the brittleness «f glass when cold. **\\u27 Even if shipped in warm weather, the care wthich will be taken of them is remarkable. Each lens will be sewed up in. cotton flannel. It will then be placed in a box filled with the finest curled hair, closely paoked on every side, so that the contents will be immovable. This box will then be hermetically sealed and placed inside another box, the space between being filled with small springs, so designed as to obviate any jar from the train. The lenses will be shipped in a special parlor car, chartered for the purpose. Mr. Clark will go with them, and also two assistants, and one of the three will be on guard day and night to see that the precious pieces of glass receive no jar. These lenses represent years and years of patient work by the man who is probably the most expert in that line of work of any one :n the world. Mr. Clark himself has worked on them for a year after they were so perfect that no other scientific man could have told, either by look or measurement, that they were not flawless. It is probable that these glasses will always remain the finest in the world. Theoretically there is. no reason why lenses of any size may not be made, but in practice the chance of there being conditions which would not allow of the development of a glass larger than these are o great that It is not likely that one will ever be made. v WHAT JOHN MUIR GALLS THE.«\u27FOUR-FOOTED LOCUSTS A STRONG FACTOR I|i THE. DJ2STROT1M FQRGgS. 0fc443-https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1228/thumbnail.jp