American Forestry 



VOL. XVII AUGUST, 1911 No. 8 



THE FOREST RANGER 



By E. R. Jackson 



fiEKHAPS the most picturesque figures in all the history of this country 

 of ours are those bold dashing outriders of civilization, the pioneers and 

 frontiersmen like Daniel Koone, Kit Carson and ^'Buffalo Bill." These 

 men who have led the van of the westward moving army of settlers, going 

 alwavs just a little ahead, their lives just a little more wild and unrestrained 

 than^ those of their fellow-men. But now with San Francisco just as near 

 to the centers of civilization as Savannah, and Portland, Oregon, no harder 

 to reach than Portland, Maine, we have at last reached a stage of develop- 

 ment when our country no longer has any frontier. The tide of civilization, 

 like the flood in the days of Noah, has slowly but surely swept across the 

 continent from sea to sea and engulfed all but a few isolated spots lifted 

 high above the world of man and guarded by Nature by rocky obstructions or 

 impenetrable forests. But a few mountain fastnesses now afford safe retreats 

 to the grizzly and the gray wolf. The savage no longer lurks in the forest 

 to threaten the progress of the immigrant, and 'ere now most of the timbered 

 hillsides have re-echoed with the blow of the ax or trembled at the shock of the 

 miner's blast. 



With the passing of the frontier there has gone as well the scout and 

 the frontiersman. Even "Buffalo Bill" and the "Wild West" now suggest 

 to us the stifling heat of a July day, the hustling, jostling crowds of the 

 metropolis, the peanut and balloon venders, the big, free street parade followed 

 by a magnificent performance in the main tent with utter exhaustion and 

 a feeling of intense relief when it is all over and the children are at last 

 finally tucked away in bed. 



So have times changed. The "forty-nine" played his little part in 

 the drama of the West, then yielded the center of tlie stage to the scout and 

 plainsman. Then came the cowboy, with his jingling spurs, his chaps, his 

 ready gun. But even the cattle ranches, which furnished the setting for 

 the cowman's stage, are now disappearing and in their places the prairies 

 are being dotted with small farms. What then shall the cowboy do when 

 the range has been converted into fruit farms and truck gardens? Will he 

 be compelled to give up the freedom and picturesqueness of his life, to settle 

 down at pulling weeds or drying prunes? Where is there a calling to which 

 he may turn, that he may still preserve the traditions of the Golden West? 



446 



