Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-04-25

offer men $50 apiece for making en-
tries, most of which were made pos
6ible only by perjury and by collision
with officers of the land office of the
United States. Every acre of redwood
forest has passed from the control OF
the government into the control Of pTi-
yate hands, and if it had not been for
the recent action of the California
legislature in securing for the benefit
Of future generations { small area Of
.redwoods this primeyal forest would
have disappeared in the course Of a
comparatively short time. For it
must be remembered that the redwood
is one of the most valuable timber
trees in the world; that the nearness
of the redwood forests to the coast
makes them accessible, and easily
worked; and that the demand for red
wood lumber is rapidly increasing, not
only in the Pacific states but also in
the east, and in Australia, New Zea-
land, China, and in many Of the coun-
tries Of South America.
Satisfactory as the action of the
legislature OF California has been"
Professor Sargent continues, 1T is in
adequate. The area which can be our
CHASE, for S250,000 is entirely too
SMALL the best Tedwoods are found to
the northward and not in the neigh
borhood of Santa Cruz, which is near
the southern limit Of the region Occu-
pied by this tree; and many of the
best trees have already been removed
from the land which it is proposed to
take. Properly to preserve a speci-
men of the redwood forest that all fut-
ure generations of men may see what
the greatest forest of the world once
was, much larger tract than that
contemplated in the present purchase
should be secured in the best part OF
the redwood forest-which probably
will be found in the neighborhood of
Humboldt bay. Here a tract Of red
wood forest land several thousand
acres in extent might be acquired,
running from the ocean back across
the summit of the coast range, and Ii
possible bounded on the north and
the sea.
ITO connect ones name for all time
with natural park of this sort might
we'll be an ambition which would ap-
peal to the imagination of some one
of the rich men of our time The ex-
vi
would not be excessive. Two or three
million dollars, if wisely and quietly
expended, would probably buy suffi-
cient area Of ground, and the interest
of another million would be sufficient
to protect it.
Such a property, once acquired,
should be put in the hands of self
perpetuating body of trustees that 1t
might be free from the interference OF
national or state politics. For many
years the state of California has con-
trolled and managed the Yosemite val
ley, which, first acquired by congress,
was afterwards turned over by con-
gress to the state. The gross mis-
management of the Yosemite proper
ty as a state reservation has long been
a national scandal, and this misman-
agement, which goes on unchecked
shows that the state cannot now be
trusted to manage as it should be
managed a reservation intended to
perpetuate for all time great natural
crest which can be easily injured by
ignorant control or has the govern
ment, with its use of inefficient politi-
cal employees, shown it's capacity as
yet to manage, successfully and safely
and without the aid of the military,
the forest lands of the public domain
"The care of such a reservation
would not be expensive. Fire, which
is the great danger to forest property,
is not much to be feared among the
redWoods owing to the prevalence of
sea fogS and the natural non-inftlm-
inability of the wood. The trees are
too big to cut down and steal, lumber
ing in the redwood forest being an ex-
pensiye operation requiring a heavy
outlay for machinery. A few mel
could police such a reservation, which
should be left to itself and allowed to
grow as it has grown for the last TO-
900 years, without, moreover, subject
ing it to the sort of forest manage
ment which destroys beauty ind
nature, and without any idea of MAX
ing it productive as a source Of timber
supply.