The San Francisco call., 1898-08-23

Uraln upon our forests, unleSS tue SldtH l steps In and insists that the business
 Of lumber getting shall be conducted in q rational way, with due regard for the requirements of the future.
 A well-known authority has estimat- ed that, when California was conquered | by the United States. some 50,000 | square miles, or about one-third of the total area of the State, were covered l by forests. To-day we have only some 15,000, 900 acres of first-class forest land left The redwoods of the coast ranges, which cover but a limited area of some 1,400, 600 acres, are fast disappearing; at least 20 per cent of them has already been cut and the quantity which re- mains will not last for more than thirty or forty years. Further inland we find the coniferous belt, the great pine for estS of the Sierra Nevada. Around Shasta, where the McCloud lumber mills are, this forest can be studied to the greatest advantage, for there the trees grow to the largest size and are, withal. easily accessible to the tourist. Botanists, always fond of nice classih- cations divide this great forest into three belts, according to altitude on the lowest belt, where the foothills are, we find oaks and the PinuS sabrina, reaching up to an altitude of 260Q feet. Between this height and 4000 feet comes the middle forest, where the noble sugar pine makes Its appearance, ac- companied by black pine, cedar, req and yellow fir But it is between 4o00 and 5000 fet that the conifers reach their highest luxuriance. Here the vel low and sugar pine, the giant frs and spruces, grow to their greatest perfec- tion. and it is here that the destructive lumber industry Is most profitably car ried on.
 It is easy to write about the evil, but it will be more to the point to suggest
 y1,I any forester of average intelligence could tell you exactly what to dos It has been done in so many other parts or the world, In India, In Australia, In France and Germany and Russia Wherever there are forests the nation
 which has any regard for poster1ty takes means for their preservation.
 In this country much of the work un- doubt tedly comes within the scope of the Federal Government. Uncle sam sells the timber lands and makes his
 profit thereon. so that he should un- doubtedly maintain an efficient forestry commission to attend to the reforest- ing of the lands. We ought, in short, to look upon our timber as crop, just as we regard wheat or corn. Up to the 2000 feet level the land is more valuable for farms and orchards than for tim Der growing. But above this level we should have great timber ranches, pro- ducing annually a crop which would never fail. Every acre of land In the State might thus be profitably utilized. Where fruit would not grow timber would furnish an even richer product.
 There is another and even more inn portant side to the problem which must not be overlooked The very perma- hence of our climate, the very exist ence of our vineyards and orchards, our gardens and farms, depends upon the preservation of our forests Already. it is said, the climate of California is changing. It Is becoming markedly hotter and drier. The present season, exceptional as 1t may be, seems to lend weight to the assumption. If every year were like the present one, Cali fornia would be doomed as an agricul- tural State. Yet, by stripping the for ests from our hills, we are doing our best to turn the land into an arid des- ert Every one knows the effect of trees upon the rainfall. The high spreading branches of our pines arrest the passing clouds and precipitate moisture upon the land. Then, 1t must be remembered, the Sacramento and most of our principal rivers are fed by the melting snow of the mountains. During the winter the snowfall lodges under the pines, and when spring ar rives 1t is gradually and gently melted, insuring an even flow of water throughout the summer. Remove the sheltering tree branches, and with the first heat of summer the snow will melt in body, tearing It's way down the hillsides to the flooded streams below. There will be big rush of water for a few days, and then drought. Also the bare ground, without tree roots to hold 1t together, will wash away read fly, rivulets once limpid will be filled with silt, much water will be lost by percolation through the loosened soil and the residents In the valley will find that the streams, which once never failed, are diminishing in volume year by year.
 These things are matters of every day knowledge, yet nothing Is at tempted to avert the calamity. Even if the Federal Government does not do its duty toward the forests 1t has sold, there Is much that the State, by the establishment of an efficient Forestry Commission, might accomplish. When the Federal Government sells sec ton of land, the purchaser has the right, If he chooses, to denude 1t of every stick of timber. The State has no jurisdiction, but 1t could easily take measures to insure the replanting of the land thus stripped. Nurseries for young forest trees should be estab- iished' and the seedlings distributed wherever needed. There Is plenty of land available for the purpose, as the State owns the sixteenth and thirty second sections of each township. the section being GAO acres.
 Careful experiments should be made to ascertain the best kinds of trees for planting AS l have already pointed out, it Is hardly likely that we will be able to replace our destroyed sugar pine forests, but we might do much with various foreign kinds of trees. The English oak Is said to grow more rapid ly here than the native variety, besides producing more valuable lumber. The eucalyptus, we know, Is a very rapid grower, and the timber from some of the finer varieties, such as ironbark and blue gum, has achieved a world wide celebrity To-day the streets of London are being paved with ironbark blocks a material having all the ad- vantages of a wooden pavement, com bined with the endurance of granite. The streets of Sydney and Melbourne, entirely paved with this material, stand forth as an example which the world Is rapidly learning to initiate. There Is also the jarrah wood of Western Aus traIia. absolutely teredo proof and un- equaled for piles and railway ties.