The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 11, 1904, Page 22

- THE S - FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 1964. THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL,| : ; = * Forestry Expert JOHN D. SPRECKELS...... By 81 e tlo ke vtk siaseess IPNODEIONE ALL KINDS OF ADVICE‘ Objects to Ways T .0 s : ; i of the Indians FOREST PRESERVATION. publish the letter of Mr. Sterling on the use of fire in est preservation with pleasure, as expressing the views a trained and able and scientific forester. * The con-| e of fire to prevent its destructive effects is a question ably has two sides. The renewal of the forests, to make | 1anently potential in all their varied uses as the providers | i timber and conservators of moisture, is the decisive the controversy. Our forests came to us from :he! hade use of fire, conservatively, to clear the forest| ' evidence is not complete that- their, use of that| 1 renewal, since the forests, as we received them ines, had trees of all kinds and all ages and stages is settled at the outset that if fire, used to prevent| estructive forest conflagrations, is found to prevent| d that effect cannot be provided against, then fire | ed. But when that is done have we made secure | exc the reproduction of the forests, and especially of the coniferous{ trees’ Mr. Sterling refers to the clearing of the floor of the Mariposa} grove of big trees. It is true that it is a pleasure forest and may' be treated differently from a commercial forest whose permanency | is desirable. But what appeared in the Mariposa grove may prop—f erly apply to commercial forests of coniferous trees. For thirty]‘ e duff had accumulated on the floor of that big tree grove. | fall of needles and of the deciduous trees and under-| de a covering in many places several feet in depth. | ngerous conveyor of fire, as was discovered in 188q./ would run under this duff for hundreds of feet. It was e a layer of pitch and tinder. The commission in charge the grove, after that experience, cleared and burned the duff der the big trees and from most of the whole reservation. | Then appeared the agency of the duff in preventing reproduction | ctually as an annual fire can do it. | re had long been raised the lamentations of botanists and ists that the big trees had lost the power of reproduction. be cones and these had seeds, but there were no ing from the germs. But within a few years was cleared and burned and the ground exposed | ry cone bearing big tree”there were thousands prouted from the seed. It then appeared that s of forest trees reach the ground they do ot | if they fall in a thick coating of the dry duff they fail | e t and dry seasonms, unless by some means the | ared and the tree seeds permitted to reach the nd there will be no reproduction of forests, except by artificial Of course this condition is special to a country of wet nd long dry seasons, where the decay of the duff into leaf mold is ow and does not affect the top of the mass whick prevents the contact of the seed with its natural matrix. We remain of the conviction that our forests will always be exposed to destructive fires unless some means be taken to clear the floor at a proper season. Here the office of the forest floor of len leaves is fulfilled when the rains have ceased for a time. The duff has held the moisture for slow percolation into the soil and has restrained evaporation. Its duty is done and it may be| cleared away to be succeeded by another season’s deposit of the | same material to discharge the same function. g Without pretending to any knowledge of the subject other | hat which is based on observation, we venture to suggest that | be reasons why forests in a climate like this should be treated differently from those in a country of continuing moisture. It is fortunate that the country is getting a corps of trained foresters like Mr. Sterling, whose very training makes a habit of | that open mind with which science approaches all of the problems of nature. A of experts from the Chicago School Board has reported that | : of all the school children in that city one in three is afllicted with some rder of the nerves. To account for this alarming lack of health among the city’s young folk the committee assigns as causes the incessant noises of 2 great metropolis, the lack of pure air and the general strain attendant upon the unnatural conditions of | city n THE CITY STRAIN ON CHILDREN. FTER careful investigations of a year’s duration a commiitee | life. "hese findings of the Chicago authorities emphasize the gravity | of 2 question that has forced itself on the attention of thinkers in recent years. It has been maintained that the influences of city life so far disturb the normal scheme of living as to have direct effect upon the mentality and bodily health of the second generation of urban dwellers. It has been agreed among students of social eco- nomics that unless a distinct modification of type comes to alle-! viate the strain of the intense life in cities, great harm must result, | not only for the especial class directly affected, but in reflected ! measure for the race. A i Of all the curative measures adopted by far-sighted humanists for the relief of this city strain the New York idea of roof play- grouhds for schools seems the most practical and the one giving | promise of best resuits. There, in many of the downtown schools where the congested condition of the tenement quarter allows of no breathing space for children, a roof cage, equipped with every fa-| cility for athletic games, gives place for all pupils to indulge in exer- cise denied them by home surroundings. This scheme, with the ! supplementary aid of the children’s playground, has already done much in the direction of making healthy the life of the city child. | pomemm o Jaaics Ly I Washington have lately voiced their alarm at the imminence of an utter extinction of the American of simon-pure stock. Reports quote them as making the declaration that in New England espe- cially the influx of foreigners and race suicide among the old fam- ilies have combined to make the homely names of Smith, Adams and Green memories only. Soon we will look upon the last remnant of the Puritan race with the touching sympathy we now bestow upon the unwashed Indian, whose toes are crimped over the western edge of the continent that was once his. Whether this plaintive note arises through the baneful influence of the dog days in Washington or is merely indicative of a dis-| ordered digestion, the press dispatches say not; only that the goo‘d‘ old squire up Woonsocket way who used to buy three cents’ worth | of fishhooks and two pennorth of rum at the Corners has passed. | His haunts are now become the rendezvous of the Slovak and thc.‘ Hun. Vacant is his favorite soap box at Hank Peters’ genera]’ store, empty the brownstone jug with the corncob stopple. | Impossible of conception is the effect, manifold in its influences 1 that must arise from the passing of Squire Dogberry. In the realm ! of art alone the revolution will be sweeping. Imagine having to pro-' vide future generations of playgoers with a handbook to elucidate the 1 intricacies of “Way Down East” and “The Old Homestead.” Con- | sider the archaic niche “David Harum” and “Eben Holden” will | occupy in the coming temple of letters. In our museums the patch- | work quilt and the rag carpe: will share the same glass case with the | cowhide boot and the home-made suspenders—sad relics of the Ar. ! cadian age that is gone. i | ! A NEW ENGLAND WAIL. T seems that some of the officials at the Immigration Bureau in | | ated Viscount Beauchamp, 'L"’ (COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY SPECIAL ARRANG EMENT WITH THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL AND THE NEW YORK EVENING MAIL) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT |OF AGRICULTURE, BURBAU OF | | FORESTRY, SACRAMENTO, Sept. 2, | | 1904.—Eaitor The Call: I noticed in this | | morning’s issue of The Call your edito- | I rial on forest preservatiofi, which I in- fer was inspired by my letter _m answer | | to Mr. Ostrander’s suggestions for fire ! protection published August 29. Nothing 1s farther from my desire | than to seem prejudiced or antagonistic in any way, but I do want to call your | attention to the injury which may re- sult from such a general burning of the forests as you suggest. I will preface by way of explanation by saying that I graduated from a for- | | estry college 1n this country and have studled the subject extensively abroad, and speak not as a woodsman or ama- | teur. Moreover, 1 have been officially engaged in studying the fire problem In California for about a year, and have | traveled through all of the forested re- | glons of the State. To elaborate on the technical objec- { tions to the Indian practice of firing | the woods s uncalled for here. In brief | the results of such a plan would be: (1) Destruction of all reproduction and a gradual thinning of the forest by the ! repeated burning out of the large trees at the base; (2) disappearance of the ‘humuz and ltter, which is needed to conserve moisture and enrich the soil; | @) exposure of the mineral soil to leaching and evasion; (4) ascendancy of worthless brush over large areas now under forest cover. Young growth for at least the first ten years of its existence will be de- stroyed by even the lightest ground | fire. For one result of the old Indian | practice look at the great burns in the | bases of many of the finest sugar and | yellow pines and at the great areas of | chaparral around Lake Tahoe, in the | Shasta country and through the higher | Sierras generally. True, the Indian left us the forests, but how much finer they | would have been if not thinned, scarred ! and broken by the Indians’ fires. | - Professional foresters, neither in this | countryor abroad. have never advocated | burning the virgin forest or the thick- | ets of young growth, but, on the con- | trary, have found such fires the great- | est bar to scientific forest management. | The only burning advisable is In | clearing up the debris left after lum- | bering. Fire is not used at all in the | European forests save in the most lim- ited way in burning brush, which s carefully piled. Instead a patrol sys- | tem, backed by telephones and a more favorable public sentiment, such as we are trying to get here, is used in pre- =91y —//] % E—HSTORIC MEMORIES RECALLEL BY | JANE Family Has Had Interest- ing History. Special Correspondence. ONDON, Aug. 20.—Apart from Its social importance the marriage which has just taken place be- tween Lady Jane Seymour, young- est daughter of the Marquis and Marchioness of Hertford, and Major Hugh Dudley Carleton, is of unusual interest because of the historic memo- ries that are associated with the name of the bride and the romantic history of her family. She is the third of her family to take that font name to the altar. The first was “the right noble, virtuous and ex- cellent lady, of convenient years and exXcellent beauty” who, in 15636, became the wife of that much married mon- arch, King Henry VIIL The day after the marriage took place another of his wives, the ill-fated Anne Boleyn, was executed in the Tower. Jane Seymour was the only one of the six for whom he is to have entertained any real affection and respect. She did not live lony enough to, give him time to out- grow it, dying the year following her marriage and twelve days after the birth of her son, who subsequently be- came King Edward VI Only once did she sicn her name as “Jane the Queen.” That was on the day of her son’s birth, when the customary an- nouncement was made to the Privy Council. King Henry VIII paid her the compliment of donning mourning for her, a tribute which he did not pay to the memory of any of the other four whom he survived. After his death he shared the same grave with her in St. George's Chapel. This Lady Jane's marriage was the making of her family. Her eldest brother, Edward, was successively cre- Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset, and as Protector played a leading part in | the first half of the reign of Edward VI Another brother, Thomas, was created Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and became Lord High Admiral of Eng- land. He married King Henry VIII's MARRIAGE OF LADY | DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE OF HERTF ORD OF MAJOR HUGH CARLETON. CENTLY MARRIED MISS LORD ALICE THAW. A PITTSBURG HEIRESS. | his life on the scaffold in 1549. On the death of the seventh Duke, in 1750, a curious peerage case arose, the title being claimed by delqenda.nu of the first Duke by his first marriage; and the Attorney General having re- ported in. favor of the claim, Sir Ed- ward Seymour took his :seat in the House of Lords as elghth Duke. The Earldom of Hertford was at the same time conferred on this eighth Duke’s first cousin, Francis, who thirteen years later was made a Marquis. The second Marquis married a great heir- ess, and the wife of the third also brought a vast deal of money into the | widow, Catherine Parr, but terminated | family. Tt was this third M rquis who SOME MERRIMENT FOR THOSE THAT SEEK IT - WHO HAS BECOME THE BRIDE YARMOUTH, HER' BROTHER, RE- became famous through Thackeray’'s rtrait of him as the Marquis of Steyn. The fourth Marquis was an eccentric character, and neither before nor after his accession to the title did he show any interest in public affairs. But he conceived a great ambition to becqme a Knight of the Garter. Sir Robert Peel, when Prime Minister, told him that he could not recommend the Queen to give that distinction to a nobleman who so persistently resided out of the country; “Your Lordship,” said the Minister, “has great estates In Ireland, where at the present time it is especially to —_— TR P Ry TR BTG, B e 3 An Exception. “Remember, always,” exhorted the preacher, “that whatever you sow, that also you shall reap.” “Not always,” replied Subbubs; “not if your neighbor keeps chickens."— Philadelphia Ledger. Innocence. One day &s a certain schoolmaster, with aspect flerce and cane upraised, was about to punish one of his pupils, the little fellow said, quite innocently, and doubtless with some vague recol- lection of a visit to the dentist, “Please, gir, may—may I have gas?’—Pittsburg Bulletin. “pecause T notice that she doesn’t tak me around and introduce me to the other girls."—Cleveland Leader. A Comparison. Mrs. Hatterson—Wasn't your room in a terrible enndltln‘n after the burglars left? K Mrs..Catterson—Yes. It couldn’t have been any worse if it had been through the Custom House. Told by Depew. . Senator Depew occasionally delves Into the capacious and well filled sub- ‘way of his memory and brings to light something new in the we | remarked Newitt, { I see it for the first time, and I hope —————% | venting fire. The case of the Mariposa big tree grove cited is quite apart from general forest fire protection. It is not an ec nomic problem in that case, but purely sentimental, and the aim merely pr | tection of a wondertul grove. There is |no need or desire for reproduction there, and the area is small enough | so that it is practicable to use fire | elearing up the ground. It is, in short, a “luyury forest,” while the maim prob- First Lady Jane Wife of Henry |"pive. e i twe o o & e ean sibly be held as mere the Elghth. | Stat not pos: parks, but must be exploited, though ,‘poesib!e with a view of continuous —————F | yield, and this is possible only by keep- be desired that owners of estates|ing out the fires which destroy the re- should assoclate themselves with the Production. people. You might pay them a visit.”| I shall be very glad to give you mat- To Ireland he went and “did the | ter for publication on the work we are popular,” and in due time was reward- | doing in the forests of the State, and ed with the coveted garter. It is said | you can do much to swing public senti- that on the occasion of his visit to| ment in the right direction, but I hard- Ireland he went out riding in the|ly think it fair to advocate methods ncighborhood of Lisburne, and on | Which professional foresters universally reaching the top of a hill his com- agree are very harmful to the best ranion said to him, “Now, my Lord, | present and futare interests of the as far as you can see all is your own.” | State forests. E. A. STERLING. To which Lord Hertford replied, “Well, Answers. SEYMOU I shall never see it again.” he. By the law of entail his English es- tates of Ragley and Sudburne passed Nor did TO BLANCH ALMONDS—A. O. 8, To blanch almonds throw them, to his cousin, and intimate personal | friend of the Prince Consort. But he had taken a great dislike to all of his relatives and left them nothing that| he could heip. He is eredited with having said that his chief regret at dying was that it would prevent him seeing their faces when his will was read. The fifth Marquis of Hertford seems to have been animated by some- what similar feelings toward his rela- tives, for he left all that he could con- trol by will to his friend, Richard Wal- lace, who was subsequently created a Baronet. And thus it comes about that while in Ragley House the present Marquis of Hertford possesses what is emphat- ically one of the “stately homes of England,” his income is entirely inade- quate to its proper mainfenance. It was this impoverishment of the family exchequer which drove his heir, Lord Yarmouth—Lady Jane's brother — to America for a bride. There it will be remembered he -marrfed Miss Alice Thaw of Pittsburg. Lady Jane has a cousin who bears the same name. She is the youthful daughter of the Rev. Lord Victor Sey- mour, a South Kensington vicar, who was born the fourth son of the late Marquis. It may thus be anticipated that vet another register will see the bridal signature of an always historic name, land. The disputants were a prominent luck. He was disinherited recently. New Yorker and a well known British statesman, whose reputation for laconic reparte is international. “My . atry,” shouted tne Yankee, “knows no East, no West, no North, no South!™ “Aw, indeed? What a blawstedly ig- norant country!” drawled the English- ‘me-~.—St. Louis Republic. iy Earning and Getting. “It was only five years ago that I started in with our firm at $5 a week,” said Bragg, “and now I earn $50 a week without any trouble.” “That's so. It's easy to earn that,” ‘but how much do hia Press. - you get?"—Ph Harold—Cut off with a dollar, eh? Percy—No; his mother did the disin- heriting. He was cut off with 98 cents. —Houston' Chronicle. h"Ah. S0 you've got an automobile, eh? “No, indeed! My wife's been clean- ing my clothes with gasoline, that's all!”—Indianapolis Sentinel Originality. Be careful about your originality. Counting 2 and 2 as § is original, but it i# apt to be unappreciated.—Chicago Tribune. City. when sheiled, in boiling water, just | long enough to allow the skin to be- come detached from the almond, then remove the skin. REDUCING—A Subscriber, Seima, Cal. In order to reduce lower imbs to their mnormal condition by exercise place yourself under the care of a pro- fessional trainer, who will determine the proper exercise to be taken. BRYANT'S MINSTRELS —N. N, City. In order to answer the question as to whether Bryant's Minstrels were at one number or anothef on Broadway, New York. this department would have to know the year which the questionmer wishes to know about, as this depart- ment has not the time to hunt up t! record since Dan Bryant opened his Minstrel Hall in 1368 in the Tammany Hall building on the north side of Fourteenth street, near Third avenue, down to the time he went out of busi- ness. THE YOUNGEST—J. C. F. City. As this department has not a roster of the ages of those who are “Thirty-sec- ond degree Masons, Knights Templar and Mystic Shriners in the United States,” it is impossible to name who is the youngest. Should some one set up the claim this department would not publish his name, for the reason that from every section of the country wculd come claims to controvert the assertion. It would be the same as to who is the oldest Mason and the oldest Odd Fellow. —_———— Mausic at the Park To-Day. The following programme will be rendered at Golden Gate Park to-day: Selection, “"When Johnny Comes Marc ing Home™ . s B “Willlam Tell” ...... Bedidiid Rossin! of the Farth” Lucy (a) Somg, “Grand Order Paraphrase on Schubert's “Serenade”. ... Horst ‘Townsend's California Glace frufts In artistic fire-etched boxes. 715 Market st.*