The San Francisco call., 1898-08-21
THE DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS.

HE preservation of the forests of California IS
 of such prime importance to demand public
 expression and be formulated into a public policy It is customary to put foremost the needs oi mining and other interests. While mining is important and deserving intelligent attention, it safe say that the protection of our forests and forest lands is the greatest economic question in sight in this State It IS a permanent interest The wealth and influence of the forests not temporary In no part of the world do the pines and other coners produce themselves rapidly here It is shown by the catalogues of Professor Lennon that California has greater variety of useful conebearing than any other part of the world. Nature plants species and sets her forests where the conditions for their growth are best, and the great number of cOnifers found here is proof that the conditions for their growth are better than anywhere else. What nature has lavishly planted is more avishly wasting and destroying.
 The forest fires of this dry year are appalling in their extent and in the waste they have caused The timber destroyed equals in value the entire gold put of the State Not only the standing timber gone but the young trees coming destroyed and the mountain soil is baked by the flames, killing the seed that waited for moisture sprout and grow and new the forest crop.
 At this moment the mountains are lurid with these fires from Mount Wilson to Shasta. In both the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevadas the fires so general that the IS nQQen Dy SHlOke, ana its pungent effects felt by passengers trains in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys.
 Timber in the Government parks and reservations is being destroyed in vast quantities and the served forest is falling before the flames like stubbe. The State can well afford spend million year to protect these forests. Some plan should be devised for summer police in the mountains, and everybody who enters the forests, camping, hunting, fishing, prospecting or timber, should be identified and located. Whoever is caught handling fire careessy, leaving camphres to smolder, throwing cigarettes in the duff in any way endangering the timber by carelessness or design should be severely punished The man who will draw the statute to protect the forests and to punish forest will be public benefactor of the first class.
 Heretofore forestry has been considered fad by the average citizen. The mill and lumber companies have had the general idea that forestry intended prevent the use of timber for lumber These mistakes need correction. Forestry IS definite art as agriculture or horticulture Like them 1t is devoted to the planting protection and production of crop, that is to be harvested for the of man, when IS ripe like any other crop.
 Instead of being inimca to the interests of the 1umberman, forestry IS promoter of his business by preserving the kind of property in which he deals and by rigidy protecting its reproduction.
 Now, with the sorry spectacle of hundreds of miles of forest fires view from one end of the State to the other is the time public attention and get some pledges of public action to put end to this wanton and criminal waste of the States best and most valuable property