The San Francisco call., 1895-12-24
FOREST PRESERVATION.

Colonel John P. Irlsh's able article in
Sundays CALL relative to the preservation
of the wonderful forests of California was
inspired by popular movement to turn
over the Yosemite to the National Gov
ernment, and its argument is for the pur-
pose OF showing that Government protec-
ton is inadequate. The cause of this in
adequacy is the failure of the Government
guardians to follow the Indian custom of
burning over the ground annually, such
failure producing a heavy accumulation of
infammable leaves and inducing dense
growth of injurious underbrush. He
seeks to show that careful annual burning
over prevents underground and the accum-
ulation of inf1ammable stuff, and thus pre-
serves the forests from danger of destruc-
ton by fire, and prevents the exposed soil,
after such destruction, from slipping away
under the action of the rains and leaving
bare and unproductive rocks.
The lameness of this logic is its ignoring
of the fact that burning destroys the nu-
triton upon which forests thrive; it is a
deliberate subrogation of a natural law.
Indians and stockmen burn the ground
over TO make feeding ranges open. Sheep
cannot be herded nor deer hunted in un-
derbrush. No Indian was ever a true
forester; he was only a savage huntel
The care with which he set fires was not
taken for the sake of the trees, but in or
der that their burning should not drive
the game from the range. These fires were
vastly injurious TO the forests for two evil
dent reasons-they destroyed the young
trees and deprived the old Of their proper
nourishment. The fact that no young
Sequoia g1gantea appeared until the In
dians had been driven from their habitat
and sheepmen prohibited from entering
is conclusive evidence on that point, and
Colonel Irish seems inadvertently to have
admitted ii.
Colonel Irish makes a startling assertion
when he declares that underbrush in the
Yosemite is killing the trees there. Roots
of plants usually have depth and spread
proportionate to the height of the ant );
hence the roots of shrubs do not usually
steal much of the nutriment OF large
trees among which they grow, and what
ever the proportion of the nutriment they
do steal it is more than compensated for
by the additional nutrlment which the
pISSclCc VI IIlc Sill indhtS pOSSiUlt.
AS a rule the broad areas in forest re-
gions which are now occupied solely by
brush were undoubtedly caused by fires
which Indians set, for the destruction of the
original trees encouraged growth of
brush which strangled the efforts of young
trees to take the place of the old. More
over, the rule of nature is to replant de-
stroyed forest with a growth OF another
kind.
Besides furnishing the chief means of
fertilization. which promotes the growth
of trees, accumuIations of discarded vege-
tation serve as a mulch, the value of which
is familiar to every agriculturist; and in
addition to that they offer the best posi-
BILE means for conserving the stores of
water from precipitation.
1t is undeniable that accumulation of
dry leaves and dead grass increases danger
from fire; but it seems illogical to argue
that the best way to prevent human beings
from setting fires is to remove from their
reach things that will burn. 1t might be
better to try the plan of preventing the
setting of fires.