364 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



and every summer thousands of acres of priceless 

 forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, cli- 

 mate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away 

 in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national 

 parks, not one forest guard is employed. 



All sorts of local laws and regulations have 

 been tried and found wanting, and the costly 

 lessons of our own experience, as well as that of 

 every civilized nation, show conclusively that the 

 fate of the remnant of our forests is in the 

 hands of the federal government, and that if the 

 remnant is to be saved at all, it must be saved 

 quickly. 



Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot 

 run away ; and if they could, they would still 

 be destroyed, — chased and hunted down as 

 long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their 

 bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole 

 backbones. Few that fell trees plant them ; nor 

 would planting avail much towards getting back 

 anything like the noble primeval forests. During 

 a man's life only saplings can be grown, in the 

 place of the old trees — tens of centuries old — 

 that have been destroyed. It took more than 

 three thousand years to make some of the trees 

 in these Western woods, — trees that are still 

 standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving 

 and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. 

 Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries 

 since Christ's time — and long before that — 



