Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-03
THE PROPOSED SHASTA PARK.

for game preserve is alone sufficient rea-
son to sustain the scheme. As the State
and coast become more and more settled,
the game is being driven into more cir
cumscribed bounds, and several of its best
families are becoming so reduced that
there is reason to believe their California
representatives will soon cease to be found
in our streams and on our mountains and
wooded slopes. A park reservation can be
so guarded that it will serve in a true
sense as a game-breeding ground
This is but one reason, however, for the
reservation. Another and important one
is the preservation of timber, and notably
of examples of our conifers. 1t is a fact
that varieties of cone-bearers found in our
mountains twenty years ago are now
nearly extinct. Europeans who for more
than two decades have procured the Cali
fornia cone seeds for cultivation of tree
growth in French and German parks, now
complain that some of the most desirable
varieties are no longer obtainable
The proposed park will become safe
field in which not only the cone-bearers
growing there can be preserved, but the
disappearing varieties of the Sierras can
be planted and cultivated. The import
ance of this branch of the subject
cannot he dwelt upon now, as is the purpose
to do presently. Upon that subject we
are happily in possession of some very
valuable information, and we look forward
to the dedication of the proposed park as
an opportunity for communicating it, as it
will be also, for arboriculture of class
now wholly neglected.
But, above and beyond these considera-
tions, the reservation would be of immense
value as a resort for tourists and for our
own people. No landscape gardening is
to be compared to Natures parks; no art
of man can equal the sublime beauty and
rugged grandeur of native woods, lofty
mountains and deep wales unconquered to
production.
The need is imperative for one grand
park upon this coast, where nature has
been so bounteous in her gifts of superb
scenery, True, we have Yosemite Valley
and the Big Tree Grove reservation, but
the former is so unlike any other natural
park as to stand apart as wonder and
must ever remain a great curiosity, some
what difficult to reach and an awe-inspir-
ing spectacle rather than park of varied
scenery and broad extent. The latter is
too small and is lacking in the elements of
variety, of diversified surface and natural
adornment. But the proposed Shasta
Park would embrace lofty mountain ranges,
snow-clad peaks and evergreen plateaus
magnificent perspectivcs Of valley, gorges,
hills and virgin forests; rivers of sparkling
purity and wondrous beauty, and torrential
streams that break into the loveliest of cas-
cades and falls. The whole region is the
ideal realized of rugged grandeur and
virgin nature in its most picturesque form.
1t is not, by reason of its broken and up
lifted character, adapted to great agricult-
ural production, nor is it needed in the
presence of the great area to be settled
that so much of this region of minor
acreage as is fit for husbandry should be
given over to the AK and the pillow. 1t
would be very many years at the earliest
before the section, to the extent that it is
inviting to him, would lie occupied by the
agriculturist. Its advantages as natural
park far outweigh the benefit it would be
to the State if yielded to settlement.
There is need for some such near resort to
which cur people can retire, even if but
briefly, in the heated term, and find ever
living streams, deep wales, cool shades,
resinous atmosphere, the maximum of life
giving ozone, and the quiet and freshness
of the unviolated temples of the noun
tains and the woods The setting apart of
the reservation would, as already init
mated, greatly conserve travel to this
coast and foster tourist excursions and
these are considerations of the highest i'm
portance- 1t would also do much to pre-
serve the integrity OF the great drainway
of the valley, the Sacramento river, by
preventing the possibility of its upper
waters being contaminated by artificial
wasting of the hills, and prohibit the sup
plies of the head of the stream from being
diverted, to its starvation.
These are not all the reasons that sug-
gest themselves for the reservation for
which Congress is to be asked. There
is a sentimental one of much
strength that is capable of elaboration-the
effect upon social life and conditions of
such retreat, and the influence il would
exert upon the taste, to say nothing Of the
health giving and restoring effects upon
Its visitors of section preserved as nearly
as may be in its p-imeyal condition. 1t is
to be hoped that Congress will consent to
give TO California this National Park. sim
liar to that of the Yellowstone, but more
nearly related to eenters of population.
more varied in its natural features, and
capable of yielding benefits to the larger
aumber & people.
The Cansdians are represented as ex-
eeediugly angry that the rumared agree
ments reached concerning the fisheries dis
pute are favorable to the position of the
United States. siace it is true that all