30 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



England and Scotland have lost some of the most beautiful 

 scenery we possess because it has been taken into private estates. 

 A great deal of the finest scenery in Scotland is now practically 

 unapproachable by the pedestrian or the artist or the naturalist 

 because people have appropriated it to their private purposes 

 and keep the public out. This is especially the case where the 

 motive for exclusion is what is called sport. Sport is under- 

 stood to mean killing God's creatures, and for the sake of kill- 

 ing God's creatures, such as deer and birds, very large areas in 

 Britain and some also in other parts of Europe are shut up. 



Then the enjoyment of natural beauty is largely encroached 

 upon by the operations of the lumbermen. That is something 

 we do not have to fear in Britain, because timber is not there in 

 sufficient quantity to be an article of economic value to us, but 

 it is a very serious question here. You have prodigious and 

 magnificent forests ; there are no others comparable for extent 

 and splendor with those you possess. These forests, especially 

 those on the Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada, are being 

 allowed to be cut down ruthlessly by the lumbermen. I do not 

 blame them; timber is wanted and they want to drive their 

 trade, but the process goes on too fast and much of the charm 

 of nature is lost, while the interests of the future are forgotten. 

 The same thing is happening in the Appalachian ranges in 

 New England and the Alleghanies southward from Pennsyl- 

 vania, a superbly beautiful country, where the forests, made to 

 be the delight of those who wish to ramble among them and 

 enjoy the primitive charm of hills and woodland glades, have 

 been despoiled. Sometimes the trees have been cut down and 

 the land left bare. Sometimes an inextricable tangle of small 

 boughs and twigs remains, so that when a dry year comes a 

 fire rages among them and the land is so scorched that for many 

 long years no great trees will rise to replace those that were 

 destroyed. 



And, lastly, there is the question of water power, which has 

 in recent years, since the scientific discoveries enabled it to be 

 applied in the form of electricity, become an asset of great 

 commercial value. You, fortunately, have a great supply of 

 splendid water power. I am far from saying that a great deal 

 of it, perhaps most of it, may not be very properly used for 



