Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-06-01
TELLER AND TIMBER.


lands appears to give carte blanche for the
destruction of the forests, and that was
hardly necessary. His definition OF the
provision which declares that timber may
only be cut for domestic use is go COM
prehensive that it is difficult to under
stand why, if he is right, these words were
employed in the statute at all. He ap-
pears to hold that they embrace the use
of timber for all purposes but certain
manufacturing ones. 1t can be cut to
build houses with, to timber mines with,
and apparently for almost anything except
to make furniture with. Under so ex-
tremely liberal an Interpretation it is evil
dent that the comparatively small forest
growth still remaining to the Government
will be removed in a few years. Perhaps
it Is necessary that this should be done,
but when the timber is all gone the Gov
eminent and the country will find it very
difficult to devise a means of replacing
it. Unfortunately also there is much profit
In destruction, and no immediate profit in
reconstruction. Nevertheless it is the
duty of all who have given TO this ques-
ton enough consideration to realize the
effects OF timber destruction, to continue
calling upon the Government for wiser
measures than have yet been adopted. In
less than fifty years, if only the present
rate of destruction is kept up. the last OF
the American forests will have been con-
sumed, and the question which must then
arise will not be merely in relation to other
forms of fuel, or other materials for build
ing and manufacture.
In the denudation Of our mountain
ranges is involved a series OF dangers,
every one of which should cause wise
Government to pause. Nothing is more
certain than that the removal of the tim
Der from the high lands completely must
render the valleys below uninhabitable.
In California this is danger which be-
comes more real and pressing every year.
In Nevada the enormous consumption of
timber for mining purposes has already
caused the mountains about Lake Tahoe to
be stripped almost bare, and as a result
the climate Of that region is already be-
coming more bleak and cold than formerly,
and in few years it will probably lose its
chief attractions as a summer resort. The
TANKS of the Sierra are In like manner be-
ing denuded, and the streams which were
! formerly fed by the slowly melting SHOWS
which the timber retained, now dry up
early in the spring, while in the winter they
! become dangerous torrents. All these and
many similar facts have been laid before
| the public repeatedly. The Government
itself, by instituting a Bureau of Forestry,
has collected mass of statistics all point
! ing in the same direction. But though one
or two feeble efforts have been made in
Congress to obtain legislation on the sub.
! ject, the most senseless partisan quarrel
is potent enough at any time to thrust this
important matter out Of sight.
1t is indeed seriously to be questioned
whether under republican form of Gov
eminent it is possible to procure any far
seeing and far-reaching protective legisla-
ton of the kind needed. When French
/ king expressed his indifference to the future
by saying After me the deluge," it was
regarded as indicating the cynical apathy
of despot. Yet there are unguestionably
many millions of free Americans living to-
day who care no more than Louis did for
posterity nay, who are willing to aid the
ruin of their own children rather than take
| the trouble to look ahead few years.
While this evidence of imperfect civiliza-
ton confronts US, we ought to be very
difident, for it is beyond doubt a proof of
imperfect civilization when nation cannot
be persuaded to provide against certain
evils in the near future. The quality of
prescience indeed is what chiefly
distinguishes civilized from barbarous men.
The savage never looks forward. To him
the present moment is all-sufficient. If he
has food for the day he will let the morrow
look after itself. And this is why savage
race may inhabit country for thousands
OF yearF, and perishing leave no traces of
its sojourn behind it. The Egyptians and
the Romans were civilized races, and the
solidity and massiveness of their
architecture and engineering works prove
that they labored always with an eye to
the future.
But what can be said of US, who, with
all the immense advantages conferred upon
US by Science. with the plainest warnings
before us, with the most terrible evidences
of the folly of other men to guide us, are
yet as Indifferent to our own interests and
those OF our children as the veriest savages
that range the banks Of the Blue Nile :?
There is not the excuse of ignorance to
absolve US. We have been shown what
we ought to do, and what will follow if we
do not do it, and yet we neglect our duty
and interest in the most unfaithful and
stupid and grossly selfish way. What is
to be thought of the progress, of the pa
triotism, of the intelligence of a nation
which is too Indifferent, sluggish and
greedy to take those precautions which are
needed to prevent its most fertile regions
from being changed into bowling wilder
nesses, its fourishing cities into heaps of
deserted ruins, and their denizens into
paupers? Yet it is absolutely certain that
unless action is taken to check the rapid
destruction of our forests these and more
severe calamities must result, and genera
tions yet unborn will execrate the memory
of their barbarous ancestors who, through
a perverseness which has no excuse, re-
fused to take thought for their successors,
and destroyed the splendid patrimony
which it was their duty to hand down in
undiminished productiveness and useful
ness But the first sordid and despicable
question of partisan politics will obliter-
ate every thought of this grave issue, and
the shrieks of oontending factions, fercely
fighting over Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
will drown the sound of tie axes which
are so swiftly removing the last of the
American forests.