Arizona citizen., 1879-04-04
Forests Of the Sierras.

If the forests of the Sierras are de stroyed, their annual snowfall will probably uot be materially diminished. The length of time, however, required to melt it will be much shorter; and the absorbing power of the forest be- ing gone, the volume of water passing through the rivers will be greatly in creased. It is not difficult to fOretell the results. Every season, earlier at the south, later at the north, torrents more terrible and destructive than the history of the world records, will car " during a few weeks death and de- sOlation from the mountain-sides down over the foothills, covering the plains with debris and holding the cities ly- ing along the low banks of the larger rivers at their mercy. And then, when this terrible rush of a few days is over, it will be found that the whole supply of water for the summer is exhausted. The foothills and the plaln will no longer produce fruits or vege- tables, or any summer crop for which irrigation is essential, for no water to irrigate with will come down from the mountains. "Placer mining will be a thing of the past, and even the navi- gation 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 calami- ties similar in origin and extent to those which now threaten California, but in none of them were the physical reasons for the danger so great. The mountains from which the destructive torrents of Europe have sprung are lower than the Sierras, less heavily forest-clad, and enjoying a more regu- lar 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 dan- gers we fOretell, and on its adoption depends the future of California. A strip or strips of forest must be set aside along the western slope of the Sierras extensive enough to secure the natural flow of rivers, and these reSer- vations must be strictly guarded from fire, the axe, and especially from all browsing animals. It is in her boast ed millions of sheep that Calif0rnia's greatest danger now lies. TheSe, with countless herds of other browsing ami mals, are driven up every summer from the plains into the mountains to feed during the dry season. The dam age they are inflicting in the Sierra forests is terrible and indescribable. One can ride for days at a certain ele- vatiOn through the mountains along the sheep-trails without seeing outside of the rare ranch enclosures a single uninjured shrub or a seeding tree of any sort. This means that there is nothing left of the forest but its older trees, and that if has lost or is fast los ing its best element for holding back melted snow; and it means, too, that there are no trees coming on to take the place in their turn of theirparents. As the number of animals driven to the mountains increases, forest fires in- crease also, set by the shepherds either accidently or purpOSely to increase the next years feed. A forest annually wasted by fire, on which the axe is al ways making terrible inroads, and in which no young trees are allowed to spring up, is clearly doomed. When that of the Sierras, the noblest of our continent, has gone, nothing will stand between California and the dangers which threaten her. To preserve Cal ifornia is the first and greatest duty Of American forestry. The task is diff cult one, but it can be accomplished if her people desire it.-Natim.