Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



To an outsider, the spell they cast necessarily overshadows the doings 

 of the little humans playing at their feet. In the cool, fragrant interior 

 of the grove, the hectic bustle of the ordinary world seems trifling and 

 unimportant. Voices come pleasantly across the great spaces ; even the 

 humor of the street, provided it has a basis in reality, is mellowed and 

 enriched and merged into the region of art. The grove becomes a world 

 in itself a more radiant world; you walk out into the open and are 

 conscious of leaving some enchantment behind, of entering a more 

 difficult, harsher, more material universe. Voices sound as from very 

 far away through the trees, men lounging in groups here and there 



Big Tree land in Fresno County after lumbering and burning. No reproduction now, 

 so farewell to the Big Trees. 



are listening and laughing carelessly it is as though the blessings of 

 humor and grace and happy insight belonged to all who breathed 

 that air. 



An Easterner, a young poet and playwright, was a guest at the camp. 

 He had never been West before, never seen the big trees. And it was 

 into this pagan temple that he was led. The day before, he and some 

 of his friends went to another forest nearby, the Armstrong grove. 

 Here were the same trees, only a little wilder, with more of the natural 

 undergrowth between. And that same day, in a newspaper, he read 

 that the Armstrong grove had been sold to a lumber company. It was 

 about midnight that night when I first caught sight of him on the 



