72 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



to which the land laws have been turned to a use not at all in- 

 tended by their framers, it is stated that in seven Plumas County 

 townships the property of the settlers and miners amounts to 

 only 19,244 acres, as against 34,094 acres claimed to have been 

 acquired under the land laws in two years by a few land specu- 

 lators. Among them are Thomas B. Walker, conspicuous since 

 1898- 1899 in such enterprises in Northern California, and Wil- 

 liam E. Wheeler. These few men have continued their opera- 

 tions with particular tenacity in Plumas County on account of 

 the expected enhancement of timber-land values after the com- 

 pletion of the Western Pacific Railroad. Whatever the outcome, 

 Messrs. Aubury and Edman deserve well of the public in voicing 

 vigorously the injury done the real miner by these monopolistic 

 encroachments. If there is fraud in the method of the acquire- 

 ment, their protest may result in an investigation on the part of 

 the Government such as has been successfully inaugurated dur- 

 ing the past year in Oregon. 



Other States have also been favored in the establishment of 

 new forest reserves, until we now have over 100,000,000 acres set 

 aside under this head in the Western States and Territories. 



In October of the present year 343,000 acres were withdrawn 

 from the public domain in the heart of Monterey County, in 

 preparation for the proposed Santa Lucia Forest Reserve. It has 

 been already pretty thoroughly inspected. It concerns the water 

 supply of the Carmel River and 9f the Arroyo Seco and other 

 streams contributory to the Salinas Valley water supply. 



Reforestation. "^^^ United States Forestry Ser- 



vice since the reserves were placed under their 

 supervision by the last Congress has been displayed in many 

 pieces of work but little known to those who do not read the 

 forestry journals and the Service publications. In no direction 

 has it been more active than in experiments in reforestation of 

 denuded or chaparral areas in the semi-arid States. In Cali- 

 fornia this work has been chiefly confined to the south, where 

 thousands of pine seedlings have been planted; but reforesting 

 has been undertaken near Mt. Shasta. In Colorado, New-Mexico 

 seedlings are being raised by the million for this purpose. Ex- 

 perts have been brought from the English service, where re- 

 forestation has been practiced for a long time, and the subject 

 of replanting the denuded areas in the California reserves has 

 been taken up with the President by Senators Perkins and Flint. 



State Forester Governor of California appointed Edward 



T. Allen as State Forester under the new For- 

 estry Law. He took up his new duties in July. The appoint- 



