The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1879-04-12

INvoLvE-WHAr THE NEW YORK NATIoN"
SAYS on THE SUBJECT.
Nowhere on the face of the globe is the ply
steal necessity for preserving the forests greater
than In California; nowhere has the world seen
Its forests so rapidly and senselessly destroyed.
We will briefly examine what the dangers are
which threaten California, and what should be
undertaken to prevent or at least diminish them.
All along the western slope OF the Sierras num-
erous rivers head, which flowing westward
through the rich foothills and great plains of
California, fall into the Sacramento and the San
Joaquin, the one flowing south and the other
north, and at length emptying into the bay of
San Francisco. Through these rivers must pass
all the moisture, not absorbed by the soil, which
the Sierras attracts from the ocean lying almost
at its feet. The annual precipitation of moisture
in these mountains, although almost exclusively
confined to the winter months, is still very large,
a fall of sixty feet of snow during an exceptional
severe winter having been reported IN the high
Sierras. 1t results that during the summer
months, when the snow is melting these noun
tain streams become large and rapid rivers, car
rying off immense volumes of water, and then
almost entirely disappearing with the snow. As
they are not replenished by summer rains, the
length of their annual duration must depend on
the slowness with which the snow at their sources
melts. 1t is a well established fact that snow
melts much less rapidly, and that much more Of
it is absorbed in the forest than in the open
ground; while the forests on a mountain side
offers great mechanical resistance, especially by
their underground and coating of fallen leaves,
to the rapid running off of water or melting
snow. If the forests of the Sierra are destroyed,
their annual snow fall will probably not be ma
terially diminished. The length of time, how
ever, required to melt it will be much shorter;
and the absorbing power of the forest being gone,
the volume OF water passing through the rivers
will be greatly increased. 1t is not difficult to
E---k-1I l. -z--lkz To-, 100000 IL 80 khA
south, later at the north, torrents more terrible
and more destructive than the history of the
world records, will carry during a few weeks
death and desolation from the mountain sides
down over the foothills, covering the plains with
debris and holding the cities lying along the low
banks Of the larger rivers at their mercy. And
then, when this terrible rush of a few days is
over, if will be found that the whole supply Of
water for the summer is exhausted. The foot
hills and the plain will no longer produce fruits
or vegetables, or any summer crop Tor which
irrigation is essential, for no water to lrrigate
with will come dow from the mountains.
50 Placer mining . will be a thing OF the past,
and even the navigation of the great rivers will
be either interrupted or abandoned. During the
last fifty years more than one country in Europe
has been visited by calamities similar in origin
and extent to those which now threaten Califor-
MIA, but in none OF them were the physical rea-
sons for the danger SO great. The mountains
from which the destructive torrents of Europe
have sprung are lower than the Sierra, less
heavily forest-clad, and enjoying a more regular
precipitation of moisture with a much smaller
snowfall, and so less able to produce sudden and
disastrous torrents.
There is but one remedy for the dangers We
~foretell, and on its adoption depends the future
of California. A strip of forest must be set aside
along the western slope of the Sierra extensive
enough TO secure the natural flow Of the rivers,
and these reservations must be strictly guarded
from fire, the ak and especially from all browsing
animals. 1t is in her boosted millions of sheep
that Calilornia's greatest danger lies. These,
with countless herds of other browsing animals,
are driven up every summer from the plains into
the mountains to feed during the dry season.
The damage they are inhicting in the Sierra
forests is terrible and Understandable. One can
ride for days at a certain elevation through the
mountains along the sheep trails without seeing
outside of the rare ranch enclosures q single I'M
injured shrub or Seeding tree of any sort. Every
thing the sheehcan reach is eaten clean. This
means that there is nothing left of the forest but
its older trees, and that it has lost or is fast
losing it's best element for holding back melted
snow; and it means, too, that there are no new trees
coming on 10 take the place in their turn of
their parents. AS the number Of animals driven
to the mountains increases, forest fires increase
also, Get by the shepherds either accidentally or
purposely to increase the next years feed. A
forest annually wasted by fire, on which the ak
is always making terrible inroads, and In which
no young trees are allowed to spring up is clearly
doomed. When that of the Sierra, the noblest
of our continent, has gone, nothing will stand
between California and the dangers which threat
en- her. To preserve California is the first and
greatest duty of American forestry. The task is
q difficult one, but it can be accomplished if her
people desire it.-Nation, February LIST.