74 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 208. 



rapidly and seems destined, in the rotation of forest-crops, 

 to play a not unimportant part in the future of Florida 

 forests. It is one of the most beautiful and symmetrical 

 of all the Pitch Pines, and very showy in midwinter when the 

 great catkins of male flowers hang from the branches. 

 And what is of much more importance, the wood which it 

 produces in Florida is heavy, hard and very strong, and, 

 except in its thicker sap wood and coarser grain, not very 

 inferior to that of the Long-leaved Pine itself, so that if 

 there is anything of promise or of hope in the condition or 

 in the future of our Southern forests, it is that in some 

 favored parts of the country a tree of real value, although 

 inferior to the one it replaces, will probably spread and 

 establish itself until the time when fire shall have de- 

 stroyed in the soil the elements it requires. 



I 



The Yosemite National Park. 



T has become certain that the friends of the great Sierra 

 forest-reservation must unite for its defense against igno- 

 rant and short-sighted local combinations. The first struggle, 

 now practically ended, was with the misguided and unhappy 

 Kawean colonists. The impending struggle is partly with the 

 sheep and cattle men who have been stealing pasturage from 

 the national domain, partly with mining speculators, who see 

 possible claims on every barren ledge, partly with lumbermen, 

 who are trying to secure tracts of forest for future use. There 

 are few actual settlers in the high Sierras — there will never be 

 many. The districts that an intelligent public policy would 

 withdraw from sale are almost entirely unfit for farming, and 

 guiltless of the precious metals. 



As it always happens in these cases of private greed assault- 

 ing public property, the first move is to stir up sympathy for 

 some one or some class. The agitators who have taken the 

 contract to produce such a clamor that the Yosemite Park 

 should be shorn of many thousand acres are anxious to keep 

 in the background. But here and there along the Sierra foot- 

 hills and in the San Joaquin Valley, we begin to hear of the 

 " hardships of settlers " who " need all the timber." Some of 

 the local newspapers have taken up the cry, and pretty soon 

 it will be in politics. 



Mr. Allen Kelly, of the State Forestry Board, who spent last 

 summer in the National Park with the troops, has lately pub- 

 lished a very graphic paper upon the subject. His views 

 deserve wide dissemination, to serve as the antidote to false- 

 hoods that enemies of the park are printing. This, for in- 

 stance, sums up a few of the i^esults : 



"Three years ago when Tom Agnew" (an old mountaineer) 

 " came down out of the mountains he counted ninety-two for- 

 est-tires on the water-shedof the San Joaquin between his place 

 and Jackass Meadows. The sheep had gone out just ahead 

 of him. Last year there were no sheep in that part of the 

 country, and there was not a single fire. 



" In former years it would have been diflicult for a company 

 of eleven men with saddle-horses and a pack-train to go 

 through the country on the route that we took, for the reason 

 that they could have found no food for their animals and would 

 have been compelled to pack grain. Last year the grass was 

 plentiful on all the meadows, and camp could be made almost 

 anywhere. Men who live in the mountains say they never 

 before saw so much vegetation late in the season, and the 

 feeling of satisfaction with the results of the exclusion of stock 

 from the reservation is general and deep. The miners of the 

 North Fork and owners of preemption and homestead claims 

 within the park have not found it necessary to stand guard 

 with Winchesters over their grass-land, and they have found it 

 possible to go away for a day or two without worrying over the 

 probability that they would find all the feed destroyed by some 

 wandering band of sheep when they returned." 



Articles of Mr. Kelly's during the past year in the San Fran- 

 cisco Examiner and elsewhere have been characterized by 

 high literary quality and rare capacity of grasping the whole 

 subject. It is a long time since so careful a writer has spent 

 so much time in the field studying such problems. Last sum- 

 mer's work, according to this capable reporter, consisted of 

 one long campaign against the sheep. Captain Wood, an old 

 Arizona Indian-fighter, and Lieutenant Davis, an Oregonian 

 and West Pointer, were the men for the region ; they adopted 

 the plan of marching every sheep-herder to the corners of 

 the park, and leaving the sheep to scatter where they chose. 

 This system proved effecdve, and no other would have done 

 so, for the sheep-men, who were at first treated leniently, kept 



driving their flocks back again. Wherever the troops went 

 they saw the results of overpasturing the mountains. 



" After entering the country that has been grazing-ground 

 for sheep," Mr. Kelly says, "no game of any kind was to be 

 seen. Deer cannot live where sheep run, because the sheep 

 destroy all the browse ; and, moreover, no animal will graze 

 where sheep have fouled the ground. The sheep are driven 

 into the mountains at the time of year when grouse and quail 

 are nesting, and the eggs and chicks of birds that nest near the 

 ground are destroyed by the pattering hoofs of the woolly 

 horde. The high-mountain region is the natural home of the 

 grouse, but in a march of 130 miles only five of the birds 

 were seen. 



" It is the testimony of all the mountaineers that before the 

 sheep came into that country game of all kinds was plentiful. 

 Deer were so numerous that a man did not need to leave his 

 cabin-door to get a shot, and grouse could be found anywhere. 

 Hunters have not been numerous enough to kill off the game, 

 and there is no doubt that it has been driven out and destroyed 

 by the sheep." 



The evidence that sheep eat off every Fir-shoot within reach, 

 and the young Fir-seedlings, is overwhelming. The ground 

 where they pasture becomes bare and dusty, the young trees 

 die; even the smaller native flora is threatened, and many spe- 

 cies are almost extinct. Then come the fires, mostly kindled 

 bv herders to burn the underbrush. These fires have done 

 much more damage to the forests than a casual observer 

 would suppose, for the Firs, that constitute a larger part of 

 the older growth, are very easily top-killed. In a few more 

 years they decay and fall. The Fir forests, over thousands of 

 acres of Sierra uplands, are as completely doomed as a North 

 Carolina turpentine-grove after being thoroughly boxed for 

 two or three successive seasons. Other Firs will grow if the 

 sheep are kept out, but the value of tlie lumber destroyed 

 would buy up every flock in the state of California. 



The evidence given by last summer's faithful guardianship 

 of the park contrasts curiously with the heedless clamor of 

 those who regard the system as "an infringement of personal 

 right." The real mountaineers welcomed tlie troops. When 

 the sheep were driven out game increased, and there was 

 grass for pack-mule, saddle-horse and milch-cow. The real 

 prospectors, wandering lonely and silent tlirough the deep 

 ravines looking for outcroppings, agreed with the rest of the 

 actual mountain-abiders, that the park was a good thing to have. 

 The men of the high Sierra wanted the glory of the forests 

 restored, as they remembered that glory forty years ago. 

 Resolutions against the park came from those who found their 

 free use of national territory at an end, and from discontented 

 and speculative outsiders, mere refugees in the cave of 

 AduUam. 



It ought to be easy for the American people to decide the 

 question. Mr. Kelly sums up his report with the remark that 

 " All the timber land in the Sierras now remaining in the hands 

 of tlie Government should be withdrawn from entry and sale 

 and included in a reservation extending from Shasta to San 

 Bernardino, and the grazing of stock on the reservation shoukl 

 be prohibited and prevented by a patrol of cavalry." This is 

 terse and practicable. It ought to be done liy the present 

 Congress. „, , ,, ^, ■ 



Niles, Cal. Charles H. Shinn. 



Winter Rambles in the Pine-barrens. — II. 



ONE of the most interesting shrubs of the Pine-barrens is 

 Shepherdia Canadensis. The stems are from two to five 

 feet high and clustered like those of the Currant, which it also 

 resembles when covered by red berries in the summer. The 

 compound hairs, formed of many spreading rays united Ijv 

 their edges, coat the buds and smaller branches with rusty 

 scales. They have a roundish outline, with an irregular mar- 

 gin, as some of the rays are free at the end and project heyond 

 the general border. Though the color and abundance of the 

 scales, as a whole, give the bushes a rusty look, parts of tlieni 

 are bright, particularly the buds, which glisten in the sun-light 

 with a metallic lustre. The branches may be gTay, or grav 

 interspersed with copper-colored spots, the variations being 

 chiefly due to the color of the bark and the structure and ar- 

 rangement ot the scales ; for tlie rays of the compound hairs 

 are primarily white or pale, and colored only as far as thev 

 cohere. When but slightly united at the centre, or when 

 deeply fringed, the grayish brown color prevails, but when 

 nearly or completely united, and the scales compactly placed, 

 we have the bright, metallic lustre. The bark itself is of a 

 dark, reddish brown, and when free from scabs, or visible 

 among those less closely placed, adds to the variety of color. 



