The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-10-09
HE cALAvERAs TREES.
All But Nlnety-one Reported to Have
 Been Sold.

Been Solos
 
 From the San Francisco Call.
 The information is given out that all but ninety-one of the Calaveras big trees have been included in the sale of tim Der tract, and that the buyers will soon begin numbering on their purchase.
 This is sad news. and bad. One would think that there is enough timber in Cali fornla for economic uses without attack ing these great trees, which are the old est examples of inanimate life in the world. They give no evidence of having passed their prime. The decay of age is not upon them. If 1t were there might be some excuse for their harvest and con- version to the uses of man. But they 1 still stand erect, their verdure untouched by age, and their foothold on mother earth as firm as when they were sap lIngs in that far past before man had erected nations or organized government.
 Not many hundreds of them exist. They were migratory. and dendrologlsts find evidence of their original habitat beyond the Arctic circle, whence they started on a Journey southward. going below the present southern boundary of California. | But they found existence nowhere under as favorable conditions as in our noun tains, and they have ceased to live else- where. In their chosen home they have outlasted the ages. Some of them have undoubtedly seen over coco years. They were contemporaries of the volcanoes | which built up modern peaks They were here when Shasta and Diablo and the Lassen Buttes were the lighthouses of the great range and the great valley. Some of them were growing when Lake Tahoe was a seething crater and the San Joa- uuin valley was an inland sea- There is no doubt that the great mammoth, the elphus primogenius, scratched his hairy sides against their trunks, and the great bear the ursus horribilis, rested in their shade. Talk of the old ruins of the east ern hemisphere, to which we make pill grimage, is talk about the things of yes terday, when the age of these trees Is compared with that of the Sphinx and pyramids. Man did not build them. Joa- quin Miller said that the greatest arc-li- tect could not build a tree. But mans
 
 cannot build, and 1t is about to be put to the task of destroying these ancient works of nature to make a few dollars!
 It is bad for the trees that man and government ever overlook them, if man and government cannot save that which has flourished without them. We protect the buzzard and the gull and the sea Howe iron, eIauohter and exferruina tion We give the wild deer and the birds chance by making a close season in which no mans hand can slay them, un- punished. We give to the fishes of the sea and river the shelter of the same law that man makes for his own protection. But deer and wild birds and fish may easily be restored to their cover and to the waters. In few years they can be multiplied and renewed. Not so these autocthons that are the primates of the forest. Their growth was so slow that they were intended to be the companions of time, the comrades of the centuries, the epochs, the aeons. They cannot be exterminated, to be renewed and reach the majesty of their perfection in the life | time of a man.
 To the dendrologist they appear con scious of their great destiny in the pre- paration they make for their career. In their first youth they bulge at the ground and taper rapidly. This bulging base is their foothold and foundation. From 1t their roots go far afield, cleaving the agrnite and clinching in its creyices to hold up their great height. Like athletes, they poise and balance and prepare for the weight and height they are to carry, and fit themselves to defy the mountain storms that are to beset them, the great gales that are to try their temper, and 1 the heavy snows that are to try to crush | them.
 Man in all his wisdom and experience, with the resources of science and art within his reach, nowhere makes more conscious preparation for his life and des- tiny than they. They stand the most im pressive and interesting and valuable of the creations of nature. They are the oldest plants that the sun shines upon, | and the most ancient relics of vegetable | life WIG know.
 We have learned to call the destruction of mans work by man vandalism, from the stern northern people, who with hard hoof trampled into dust the elegant evil dences of Roman civilization. But man replaced the refined creations that the Vandals destroyed. The offense they committed was slight compared to that which is chargable to the exterminators | of these old trees and grand. The sensi- bilties of few Californians are temper | cd and on edge as the great catastrophe | approaches. But the majority are indif- 1 ferent. No hand is raised to prevent the sacrifice. Commerce seizes upon the dead bodies of these great brethren. and they are sold in the market place and the mo- ney is banked and the enterprise of man has found it's meanest expression in the | murder of the trees.
 l
 HORSE DOCTORS IN ATLANTA. Southern Veterinary Association Was
 Called to Order By pr. Cary.