352 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



great fires, which kill much of what is left of the 

 less desirable timber, together with the seedlings, 

 on which the permanence of the forest depends. 

 Thus every mill is a centre of destruction far 

 more severe from waste and fire than from use. 

 The same thing is true of the mines, which con- 

 sume and destroy indirectly immense quantities 

 of timber with their innumerable fires, acciden- 

 tal or set to make open ways, and often without 

 regard to how far they run. The prospector 

 deliberately sets fires to clear off the woods just 

 where they are densest, to lay the rocks bare and 

 make the discovery of mines easier. Sheep- 

 owners and their shepherds also set fires every- 

 where through the woods in the fall to facilitate 

 the march of their countless flocks the next sum- 

 mer, and perhaps in some places to improve the 

 pasturage. The axe is not yet at the root of 

 every tree, but the sheep is, or was before the 

 national parks were established and guarded by 

 the military, the only effective and reliable arm of 

 the government free from the blight of politics. 

 Not only do the shepherds, at the driest time of 

 the year, set fire to everything that will burn, 

 but the sheep consume every green leaf, not 

 sparing even the young conifers, when they are 

 in a starving condition from crowding, and they 

 rake and dibble the loose soil of the mountain 

 sides for the spring floods to wash away, and 

 thus at last leave the ground barren. 



