THE 



FOREST SITUATION 



FORNIA 



IN CALI- 



BY 



GIFFORD PINCHOT 



Chief. IT. S. Forest Service 



""T HE essential facts about the forest 

 situation in California are three : 



First, the state has passed a forest 

 law, and under it a state forester of 

 character and training has been ap- 

 pointed. Nothing could be more 

 hopeful. 



Second, good progress has been 

 made in securing an area of land for 

 government forest reserves more near- 

 ly sufficient than in many other states 

 to protect and care for the interests 

 which, in the absence of the reserves, 

 must suffer. 



Third, and most important of all, 

 the necessity for forest preservation 

 by wise use is more generally under- 

 stood in California than almost any- 

 where else, and the people are more 

 ready to act upon that understanding. 



The comparatively favorable situa- 

 tion in forestry which these three 

 facts indicate has not been brought 

 about without vigorous and long con- 

 tinued effort by citizens of California. 

 The Water and Forest Society, through 

 the effective agitation it has carried 

 on, and the vigorous campaign it has 

 made before the legislature, as well 

 as before the people of the state, is 

 entitled to very great credit. With- 

 out the assistance of Governor Pardee 

 much of the progress of the last two 

 years would never have been made. 

 The activity of the Sierra Club has 

 been of great value. So has that of 

 the Water and Forest Society of 

 southern California ; and individual 

 men and women, far too numerous to 

 mention here, have unselfishly and en- 

 ergetically given their time and effort 

 to this paramount interest of the state. 



To call the forest interest the para- 

 mount interest might, at first sight, 

 seem unjustified; but if it is fair to 



call an interest paramount when near- 

 ly all of the other interests of the state 

 depend directly upon it, and must suf- 

 fer if it suffers, then certainly the 

 forest interest of California is para- 

 mount. Without its forests, the great 

 interests of the state in irrigation 

 would dwindle and fade. Without its 

 forests, the mines of California would 

 cease to be operated ; the railroads 

 would either stop running or they 

 would be run at almost prohibitive ex- 

 pense. Of course the vast lumber 

 business of the state would vanish. 

 Stock raising without the summer 

 range in certain of the forest reserves 

 would be impossible in its present 

 form. In a word, in California and 

 in every other timbered mountain 

 state, it is the forest which underlies 

 the general prosperity, and California 

 is most fortunate in having an under- 

 standing of this great fact so wide* 

 spread among its people. 



One most fortunate outcome of this 

 public feeling, if I may be allowed 

 to call it so, was the cooperation which 

 the state undertook with the Bureau 

 of Forestry of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture more than 

 two years ago, and which is to be con- 

 tinued for two years longer. Among 

 the results of this cooperation, many 

 of which are almost ready for publica- 

 tion, are a forest map of the state, 

 with descriptions of the different types 

 of forest trees ; studies of the sugar 

 and yellow pines ; studies of the func- 

 tions of chparral in its relation to the 

 reproduction of the forest; studies of 

 the reproduction of timber trees; and 

 a very important study of forest fires, 

 and of the means for preventing them. 



In addition to these results, there 

 are others less well defined but not 



