64 DAMAGE TO FOREST LANDS FROM SHEEP. 



out of the public forests as for several years was done by the U. 8 

 cavalry patrol in the Yosemite National Park, the feed recovers anrJ 

 the smoke nuisance is mitigated. Even the several incendiary fires 

 Bet in this Yosemite reservation and due to the hostility of local resi- 

 dents or occupants to the military, had only a temporay effect In re- 

 newing smoke in the air in that quarter. The claims of the sheep men 

 and the public forest pasture question will again be discussed. We 

 can say now that whatever opinion may prevail as to the Oregon for- 

 ests or upon the pasture question in the northern part of California, 

 Southern California conditions admit of but one opinion. This is 

 against any sheep grazing in the public forest reservations. The sheep 

 industry is now very small in this section of California. Higher uses 

 of land have constantly and for years been driving sheep out of South- 

 ern California. We can do better with the land than to keep our 

 valleys great plains of brown dust with far separated herds of sheep 

 followed by howling coyotes and carrion feeding buzzards. We can do 

 better with our men than to force them into a life of solitude; into 

 the life of the sheep-herder, where the family is impossible, manhood 

 debased and where for months the herder sees no human being. In 

 early times on the large sheep ranges here the herders' supplies were 

 taken around once or twice a month and left at the night corral. The 

 herder was always away at that time. It is no wonder that these 

 sheep-herders thus so much isolated from humanity produced by far 

 che largest proportion of insane of any class in California. The effect 

 of the herder's life was mentally the same as that of solitary confine- 

 ment 



There is no record known to me in the world of sheep pasturage on 

 public or communal lands but what shows the following results: 



A. Diminished value to the point often of final destruction of the 

 pasture for sheep. The outcome of sheep pasture on public or com- 

 munal lands is in the end reduced to no pasturage for sheep. That 

 has been the history everywhere. The most recent instances are 

 Greece and Asia Minor, South Prance and Spain. Prance and Ger- 

 many have substantially brought this under government control. In 

 Southern California even the private pastures under sheep have dimin- 

 ished in sheep-carrying capacity. 



B. Final and absolute extermination of public forests thus used 

 by sheep. This includes trees, brush and everything. 



C. Diminished water holding power of such water-sheds. 



D. Flood and torrent destruction to valleys and lowlands. 



