2o6 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



NATIONAL PARKS 



Extracts from Report of Superintendent of Yosemite National 

 Park. (1913-) 



Messrs. Miller and Sullivan, entomologists, Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, were engaged during the late spring and summer months in 

 investigating the life history of the pests (needle borer and bark 

 beetle) which are destroying the tamarack pine (lodgepole, Pinus 

 contorta) of the park. In order to best accomplish this, they were 

 given a force of men and started work in the vicinity of Lake Tenaya. 



It is found that all the "lodgepole" timber in Jack Main Canon 

 and Matterhorn Canon and Cathedral Pass has been killed by the 

 bark beetle. 



The timber in Tilden, Stubblefield, Kerrick, Virginia, and Cold 

 Canons, Tuolumne Meadows, along McGee Lake Trail, as well as 

 the regions of Benson Lake, Tenaya Creek, and Murphy Creek, is 

 badly infested. A ranger has been instructed by these gentlemen and 

 will continue the work begun by them in the effort to rid the park of 

 the pest and save the timber. The ranger reports that 1,335 trees in 

 the general vicinity of Lake Tenaya and McGee Lake Trail have been 

 cut down and 1,250 of them burned in the efforts to conquer the in- 

 festation. This procedure must be continued until the bugs are de- 

 stroyed, lest all of the lodgepole in the whole park be destroyed, after 

 which the other and more valuable species will be attacked. 



The land owned by the Yosemite Lumber Co., about 6,000 acres 

 along the Wawona Road, is now being cruised by a party appointed 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture. The purpose is to ascertain the 

 value of the timber on this land with the view to making an ex- 

 change whereby this beautiful forest may be preserved intact to the 

 park, giving therefor an equal value elsewhere within the park and 

 national forest where the lumber company can as cheaply log and 

 where the results of logging will not be visible to tourists on the 

 road. 



If the exchange can be made, not only will the tourist between 

 here and Wawona, along the Wawona Road, be edified by the beauties 

 of the sugar pine, but there will be preserved to the park a magnifi- 

 cent forest along Alder Creek, where eventually another road can 

 be easily constructed. Failure to effect the exchange will result in 

 both areas being logged and rendering it impossible for tourists to 

 go from here to the Mariposa Grove without passing through miles 

 of slash and devastation. In the transfer now being projected the 

 lumber company agrees to transfer title to the acreage. This will 

 extinguish their title and enable the Government to apply the prin- 

 ciples of reforestation, so that future generations will reap the benefits 

 of present forethought. 



