The record-union., 1893-12-07
STRIPPING THE HILLS.

Papers over in the State of Nevada are
complaining bitterly of the exhaustion
OF the timber supply on the Sierra, ac-
cessible to the lumbermen and lumber
users of that State. 1t is said that one of
the largest of the wood and lumber firms
of that State will be compelled to suspend
operations presently, because of the de-
foresting of the fanks of the mountains
clear up to the shores of Lake Tahoe.
Twenty years ago the RECORD UNION
inauguraJed the agitation against forest
destruction in the mountains. 1t then,
and for years, and up to a recent date,
gave especial attention to the subject, and
gathered the statistical and other facts,
and industriously published them, warn
ing the public that unless this timber de-
struction was checked there would fol-
low dire results, and which would be the
sudden filling of streams in storm sea-
sons, with consequent freshets; low stages
of water in the dry seasons, and sooner
or later these would have bad effect
upon climate, making valley regions
hotter in summer and colder in winter.
OF course such results would not be
seriously apparent until after number
of years. With the disposition of the
American people to let the future take
care of itself, our warnings were not
much needed. Indeed, some learned men
responded that there was no danger be-
cause new growth of pine, fir, and cone
bearers generally, springs up wherever
timber has been cut out, and thus the re-
tentive quality Of the sidehill is restored,
the waters held back and fed down
slowly. as in the first instance, the new
foliage sufficiently protecting the moist
ure in the ground.
The State did take some action, and a
few years ago Tahoe Forest Commits
sion was erected, but it never amounted
to much. Even in its time fire, sheep
drovers and the lumber and wood men
despoiled the whole Tahoe region, and
turned landscape once unsurpassed for
beauty and grandeur into a thing re-
pulsive to the sight. The United States
Government a little later resolved upon
reservation of certain timber lands; the
State already had erected a Forestry
Commission, but that the latter body ever
did much in the way of protecting forests
or quickening public spirit in the matter
is not record of history.
The destruction of our timber wealth
has not been due to the lumberman
alone. His active allies have been the
hunters and the stoekmen. 4 sheep
herders' season in the mountains
with large band of sheep is nearly as
destructive to the section traversed as is
the disastrous sweep of forest fire.
The people who strip our hills unnec-
essarily do not. however. carry off all the
plunder. Probably as many noble trees
of the mountains have been felled and
left to rot as have been sawn up OF
burned. We have not only wastefully
used the timber forests, but recklessly,
and as certainly as nature avenges every
wrong put upon her, there will come
punishment. The President in his recent
message calls attention to the wasteful.
ness of our forest policy, and well be
may. Unless in California we follow the
example of New York in the Adirondack
region. and that is supplemented by more
vigorous measures and activities on the
part of the Federal Government than i
has yet manifested. deforesting vii
go on a great deal faster than natura
restoration. and the result will not be diff
ficult to discern, nor the time of our pun
ishment be long delayed.