National Parks. 



223 



Portal from the California fish and game commission, Sissort 

 hatchery, and during that night eighteen cans were planted 

 in the Merced River between the park boundary and Happy 

 Isles, four cans in Bridal Veil Creek below the falls, two 

 cans in Yosemite Creek below the falls, and eight cans in the 

 Merced in Little Yosemite Valley. 



Trout were also transplanted from nearby streams to Dorothy, 

 Mary, and Tilden Lakes, in the extreme northern part of the 

 park. Some trout were placed also in Miller Lake by the Sierra 

 Club. 



The urgent recommendations of previous years that the 

 Government extinguish the title to all patented lands in the 

 park is renewed. 



There are approximately 20,000 acres of these lands, consist- 

 ing of timber claims and a few claims that were taken up under 

 the homestead act and were never occupied as homesteads, 

 but simply used as a pretext for bringing in stock or cattle 

 to stray upon the park lands. 



The timber claims are valuable and are becoming more so 

 every year. Some of the finest sugar pine timber in Cali- 

 fornia lies within the park along the road from Wawona to 

 Chinquapin, and the Yosemite Lumber Co. is now building a 

 logging railroad from El Portal to the park boundary near 

 Chinquapin with the view of cutting the timber from 6,000 

 acres of land that it claims within the park near Alder Creek. 

 The work of denudation in that locality is imminent, and this 

 is what will happen to the timber on all the patented lands in 

 the park in a short time unless they are purchased by the 

 Government. This matter demands urgent attention and should 

 no longer be neglected. It would be greatly to the interests 

 of the Government to extinguish all private claims within the 

 park. 



The Yosemite Valley El Portal road is the main highway 

 into the park. The sprinkling system installed on it last season 

 was extended by putting in more water supply stations, and the 

 dust nuisance was completely eliminated. The portion of this 

 road between Pohono bridge and the park boundary, about 

 ten miles, is still rocky, narrow, and tortuous, and it should 

 be widened, straightened, regulated in grade, and metalled. 



Work was resumed on the improvement of that portion of 

 the road on the south side of the Merced River, between 

 El Capitan Bridge and Yosemite Village, and 3,145 feet have 

 been completed, with work still in progress. 



The portion of the Wawona road that belongs to the Govern- 

 ment should be improved and sprinkled, and all the roads on 



