1 903 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



195 



difference with which the nation, until 

 recently, viewed the destruction of its 

 forests, the progress made in developing 

 a national system of forestry, since 

 effecting a change of policy, has been 

 equally remarkable. Few appreciate 

 the strides made in this direction. 



Historically speaking, our national 

 system saw its inception in 1890, in the 

 creation of the three parks in the State 

 of California known as the Sequoia, 

 Yosemite, and General Grant National 

 Parks. The establishment of these 

 parks for the preservation of the big 

 trees in those localities marked the first 

 recognition on the part of the govern- 

 ment of an obligation resting upon it 

 for action along a line which has since 

 developed into our present forest reser- 

 vation system. As such, it was of an 

 importance out of all proportion to the 

 direct objects to be served by the parks, 

 representing, in fact, what might be 

 termed the opening wedge in the work 

 of inaugurating a national forest policy. 

 It was not, strictly speaking, legislation 

 along the lines of forestry, but it led 

 the way to that speedily. The follow 7 - 

 ing year saw the enactment of the first 

 federal forest law, which conferred au- 

 thority upon the President to establish 

 forest reservations. From a historical 

 standpoint, therefore, the origin of the 

 movement for these parks has, in the 

 light of subsequent events, been clothed 

 with much interest, and the account 

 given in 1896 by the noted scientist, 

 John Muir, regarding the inception of 

 the idea which resulted in the Yosemite 

 Park is of value as chronicling a first 

 step in what has since developed into a 

 national policy. In an address made 

 that year before the Sierra Club of San 

 Francisco, California, Mr. Muir said : 



' ' The Yosemite National Park was 

 made October i, 1890. For many years 

 I had been crying in the wilderness, 

 ' Save the forests ! ' But, so far as I 

 know, nothing effective was done in 

 the matter until shortly before the park 

 was organized. In the summer of 1889 

 I took one of the editors of the Century 

 Magazine out for a walk in Yosemite 

 and in the woods and bowlder-choked 

 canyons around it, and when we were 

 camped one day at the Big Tuolumne 



Meadows, my friend said, ' Where are 

 all those wonderful flower gardens you 

 write me so much about ? ' And I had 

 to confess woe's me ! that uncount- 

 able sheep had eaten and trampled them 

 out of existence. Then he said, ' Can't 

 something be done to restore and pre- 

 serve so wonderful a region as this ? 

 Surely the people of California are not 

 going to allow these magnificent forests,. 

 on which the welfare of the whole state 

 depends, to be destroyed ? ' Then a na- 

 tional park was proposed, and I was 

 requested to write some articles about 

 the region to help call attention to it, 

 while the Century was freely used for 

 the same purpose, and every friend that 

 could be found was called on to write 

 or speak a good word for it. The Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences became in- 

 terested and began to work, and so did 

 the State University. Even the soulless 

 Southern Pacific Railroad Compan}', 

 never counted on for anything good,, 

 helped nobly in pushing the bill for 

 this park through Congress. Mr. Stow 

 in particular charged our members in 

 Congress that, whatever they neglected,, 

 they must see that the bill for a national 

 park around Yosemite Valley went 

 through, and in a little over a year from 

 the time of our first talk beside that 

 Tuolumne camp-fire the bill organizing 

 the park passed Congress, and a troop 

 of cavalry was guarding it." 



The good work of securing legislation 

 authorizing the establishment of forest 

 reservations resulted speedily in the cre- 

 ation of a number of reserves throughout 

 the West, covering important water- 

 sheds; but, owing to the lack of legisla- 

 tion for their administration, for six 

 years these reserves stood as a reproach 

 to the nation rather than a credit. It 

 was, accordingly, not until the passage, 

 in 1897, of a forest administration law, 

 and the provision, the following year, of 

 an appropriation for the equipment of a 

 field force, that the government maybe 

 said to have fairly entered upon the 

 work of inaugurating a national forest 

 policy. The history, therefore, of prac- 

 tical work along such lines begins with 

 the summer of 1898, when the first 

 working force was thrown into the field. 

 Since then results have been in proper- 



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