Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-06

these forests are being cut down and
burned and wasted by sheep year by year
at an accelerated rate, and nobody in
power able to lend helping hand to
check this waste, seems 10 care Hordes
of sheep, under destructive leaders. continue
to sweep the woods throughout almost
their whole extent every summer, killing
the seedlings and underbrush on which
the permanence and welfare of the forests
and streams depend, and starting running
fires wherever anything can be found for
those fires to feed upon, while more and
more lumber enterprises, conducted under
the most destructive, short-sighted
methods, are being set in motion without
single glance to the future. If possible
and profitable, every tree, bush and leaf,
with the soil they are growing on, and the
whole solid uplifL Of the mountains would
be cut, blasted scraped, shoyeled and
shipped away to any market, home or
foreign. Everything without exception,
even to souls and geography, would be sold
for money, could L market be found for
such articles.
VALUE Or THE FORESTS.
Were the practical importance Of our
forests at all manifest, it would seem i'm
possible that they could fail to receive the
tostered care of Government Strip off
the trees with their underbrush from the
flank Of the Sierra and keep the ground
bare and sodless with sheep, and almost
the whole State, the lowlands as well as
the high lands, would become but little
better than desert as compared with its
present exuberant fertility. During
raintalls and while the winter accumula-
tons Of snow were melting, all the larger
streams would become destructive torrents,
cutting deep, rugged gulIies, stripping off
and carrying away the fertile soils, filing
up and o7ertlowing their lower channels
aud covering the lowland fields with raw
detritus, to be followed by drought and
comparative barenness. While in their
natural condition, or under wise manage
ment as to the collection of mature trees
to be cut for lumber, aud the preservation
Of the young trees and shrubs and the sod
Of herbaceOus vegetation, these forests
would be 4 perennial fountain Of wealth
as well as beauty. The cool shades of the
forest give rise to moist sheets and cur
rents Of air, and the sod Of grasses and the
various Towering plants and shrubs thus
tostered, together with the network
formed by the roots Of the trees, absorb
and hold back the rains and the waters
from the melting of the snow, yet allow
ing them to ooze and percolate through
the soil and flow gently in useful fertiliz-
ing streams. Thus every pine-needie and
rootlet, as well as the fallen decaying
trunks, may be regarded as dams, storing
up the bounty of the Storn-clouds and dis
pensing Il IN perennial life-giving streams,
instead OF allowing it to gather and rush
headlong in short-Gyed devastating foods.
Streams taking their rise in deep woods
flow unfailingly like those derived from
the enduring ice and snow OF lofty nous
tains. So constant, indeed, and manifest
IS this relationship between forests and
neverfailing streams that effect is fire.
quently mistaken for cause, it being often
times asserted that fine forests will grow
and prosper only along streams where they
are well watered, when in fact the forests
produce many Of the streams flowing
through them.
a PHYSICAL NECESSITY.
The main forest belt of the Sierra is
about four hundred miles long and forty
wide, and is planted just where it does the
most good, and where its removal would
be followed by the most evils The char
acter of the ground on which il is growing
and Its great hight above sea leyel-from
5000 to 1000 feet-wiil always prevent
this forest region from becoming anything
like as valuable for other uses For the
preservation of theforestS, seen in all their
bearings upon the general prosperity of
the State, can hardly be regarded as less
than physical necessity.
In this forest belt are the sources of the
rivers on which the great soil-beds of the
State depend for irrigating waters. Here
also most Of the snow falls and is stored
beneath protecting shade. Were the forests
wholly destroyed the average fall of snow
might not be greatly diminished, but lying
exposed to the sunshine it would vanish
incomparably faster. There would be at
the beginning of every summer week or
two Of tremendous foods, then drought
and steriiity.
1t Is because the mountains of Nevada
and Arizona are so wanting in forests that
floods are there so destructive. though
originating chiefly in mere Thunderstorm
ers. Had they the immense area of the
western flank Of the Sierra with its heavy
SHOWS to draw from, those foods would be
infinitely more terrible.
THE DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERMEN.
On this subject Professor Sargent, Of
Cambridge, says: During the last fifty
years more than one country in Europe
has been visited by calamities similar in
origin TO those which now threaten Cali
fornia, but in none Of them were the phys
ical reasons for the danger so great. The
, mountains from which their destructive
floods have sprung are lower than the
Sierra, less heavily forest-clad, enjoy a
more regular precipitation of moisture,
with much smaller snowfall, aud. there
fore, less able 10 produce sudden and de-
structive floods" Now that the great for
T ests OF Maine, Michigan, and Wisconsin
! ! and other portions of the Atlantic slope
are beginning to fail, while the demand
for lumber continues to increase, mills are
being rapidly multiplied in the great tim
i Der belts OF the West. The magnificent
: redwood belt Of the coast is fast disappear
ing, and the only other sequoia TO he found
in the world-our ar-famed big tree-is
! also being cut for lumber on Kings river
and the headwaters of the Kahweah and
|; ! Iule, the logs too large for the mills be-
ing blasted with gunpowder into sections
! of manageable size.
In all these milling operations from one
end OF the range to the other far more
: timber IS wasted than is secured for profit
l able and worthy use. The massive tops
= q and branches left on the ground in smashed
i piles Of confusion form food for tremend.
e Gus fires, that kill not only the seeding.
i and younger trees, but also most of the
large ones that have been spared because
/. Of some defect, or not being OF the right
i kind, such as the silver frs, and Douglas