ARBORICULTURE 



IQI 



redwoods, and though many other en- 

 thusiastic workers have lent their aid 

 by tongue and pen, by personal influence 

 and active effort, to the cause, yet when 

 a list of all who have participated is writ- 

 ten, his name, like that of Abou Ben 

 Adam, will lead all the rest. 



We wandered in this magnificent for- 

 est for several days, meeting no one, 

 hearing no human voice except that of 

 our own party and apparently as remote 

 from civilization as if hundreds of miles 

 intervened between us and the haunts 

 and homes of men. The only signs we 

 saw to prove that we were not the first 

 to tread the wilderness were two deserted 

 cabins, on different sections and far 

 apart, which had been the abode of the 

 original owners of this land when they 

 lived on it in order to take up their 

 claims. These cabins stood open to wind 

 and weather and blackberry vines grew 

 on the heathstones and over the fallen 

 sticks of the mud-daubed chimneys. Na- 

 ture was fast reclaiming her own. Ferns, 

 waist high, grew around the doorways, 

 and obliterated the paths leading to 

 spi-ing or stream, and only the shy lizard 

 darted across the floor which had once 

 echoed to human footsteps. 



One night sitting around our camp 

 fire, with the murmer of the stream in 

 our ears, and the stars visible through 

 the interlacing redwood boughs above us, 

 Ave talked of the best way to begin in the 

 matter of trying to preserve this forest, 

 to preserve it not only for ourselves and 

 our friends, but for the state, for the 

 world, for future ages. 



We then and there formed the Sem- 

 pervirens club, and pledged ourselves to 

 work for the purchase of this forest as 

 a state park. It was deemed unwise to 

 ask the general government to buy it for 

 a reservation, as there was already a bill 

 before Congress asking for an appropria- 

 tion for the purchase of the Big Tree 

 Grove in Calaveras county, so we decided 

 to solicit state aid in the matter. 



We came out of the Big Basin full of 

 enthusiasm for our project, and for the 

 next few months we talked of little else. 

 The movement met with warm approval 

 from some people, with outright oppo- 



sition from others, while many regarded 

 it with apathetic indifference. 



Newspapers rallied to our standard, 

 university professors and teachers gener- 

 ally were in sympathy, so were such or- 

 ganizations as the Pioneers' Society, the 

 Native Sons and the Native Daughters, 

 etc. 



We had gained an option on the land 

 most heavily wooded, and the owners 

 promised that no sawmills should be 

 erected or cutting done until the legisla- 

 ture, to meet the following winter, had 

 been asked for an appropriation. In the 

 months that intervened a campaign of 

 education Avas carried on. Circulars set- 

 ting forth the project and illustrated by 

 cuts reproduced from photographs taken 

 by Mr. Hill in the Basin were scattered 

 broadcast over the state ; innumerable 

 newspaper articles were written ; public 

 meetings were held, civic bodies and fra- 

 ternal organizations passed resolutions. 

 On the other hand, the movement was 

 scoffed at as the project of dreamers and 

 enthusiasts ; hard-headed business men 

 said it would not succeed ; politicians 

 called it a scheme to rob the state for the 

 benefit of the owners of the Big Basin. 



People, meeting us on the street, 

 stopped to say in the soothing tone one 

 would use to a mentally unbalanced fa- 

 natic : This idea of yours is a fine one, 

 but it is impractical ; the state will never 

 appropriate so much money for an ob- 

 scure tract of land away off in the Santa 

 Cruz mountains. But as Tennyson says 

 in his poem, "The Defense of Lucknow," 

 after stating with cumulative force all 

 the hardships and horrors of that seige — 



"Ever upon the highest roof the ban- 

 of England blew." 

 So in the face of a thousand difificultics 

 and discouragements the friends of this 

 movement pressed on, so, figuratively 

 speaking, above the din and conflict 

 waved the banner of the Sempervirens 

 club. Finally the legislature met, the 

 bill was introduced ; then came the tug of 

 war. Friends lobbied for it, enemies 

 opposed it, politicians wrangled over it ; 

 leading newspapers of the state took 

 sides for and against it. Space forbids 

 the giving of ])articulars ; sufifice it to 

 say that the fight was a hard one. But 



