348 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



all expenses and giving the jolly sailors fifty dol- 

 lars apiece for their trouble. 



By such methods have our magnificent red- 

 woods and much of the sugar-pine forests of the 

 Sierra Nevada been absorbed by foreign and resi- 

 dent capitalists. Uncle Sam is not often called 

 a fool in business matters, yet he has sold mil- 

 lions of acres of timber land at two dollars and 

 a half an acre on which a single tree was worth 

 more than a hundred dollars. But this priceless 

 land has been patented, and nothing can be done 

 now about the crazy bargain. According to the 

 everlasting law of righteousness, even the fraud- 

 ulent buyers at less than one per cent of its 

 value are making little or nothing, on account 

 of fierce competition. The trees are felled, and 

 about half of each giant is left on the ground to be 

 converted into smoke and ashes ; the better half 

 is sawed into choice lumber and sold to citizens 

 of the United States or to foreigners : thus rob- 

 bing the country of its glory and impoverishing 

 it without right benefit to anybody, — a bad, 

 black business from beginning to end. 



The redwood is one of the few conifers that 

 sprout from the stump and roots, and it declares 

 itself willing to begin immediately to repair the 

 damage of the lumberman and also that of the 

 forest-burner. As soon as a redwood is cut down 

 or burned it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful 

 shoots, which, if allowed to grow, would in a 



