OCR Text |
Show ns i IjI M jr THE BIG TREES IN DANGER. HB j t ,j h An eastern lumber man has purchased the B j . '! big trees of California, and either as a bluff or in H j , j earnest threatens to cut them down and manufac- H ' j,l ' i ture them into lumber. California is alarmed H !ij, I and is flooding Congress with petitions to pur- H,j , .11 1 chase the land on which they stand, and make a H.' ' uj f 1 National park of it, that the trees may be pre- H ' Sj i I served. We endorse the request, but wonder how H ' j a j the rich men of California can stand by and wait B ' i Li i n for Federal interference. Those trees are one of nnH I iJ 3! w Innv H Uf Wt tlie naural glories of California and they are nH'i 'iff I unlike any other glory. No other state has the nan If. , H ; B means to rivel them. nnH li ir hb Sli j I M They are a group of Natures vegetable Eifel I1 f ! II towers. What are the rich men of California ' k ft thinking of? They want to do something to per- nB't ' H petuate their names. Why do they not turn to the H I j j jfl Big Trees; buy the land, create a park there and nB 1 wm. tlien transfer to tnQ State, adding a fund that InH i,! i P I ffl i will keep horticulturalists and watchmen there for I m Trees" would pass away and be forgotten and in W,m all time. Then the old name of "Mariposa Big 'jfjBj lieu there would be "The Smith Park" or "The iff Jones Gardens," or "The Rogers Nursery," or & i JH something else. The donor might provide himself fi B a tomb there, and then he would rival Egyptian 1 19 kings and securing a stately place for sepulchre. II 'In Two undre au sixty-five years ago John Har- J ! ( H vard gave to the college that bears his name, the J'jB nucleus of a library and a sum of money. HI 'SB As the years have unwound and the splendid f H jH results of the great university have become more I J mmm anA more marjeed and appreciated a halo has I 'i form around the name of the old man and, in i'Mil MSI momoty he stands out about the most honored Hmr ' '1 WM mSn o hIs tIme' Some pretty sa scholars Bar 1 r1 1 Wm would have to go to their books before they mid I - TflBrmi ! could think off hand of any other man who was famous two hundred and sixty-five years ago. So we fancy that the name of the man who woulcj purchase and bequeath the big trees to California would, after a while, draw to his memory something some-thing of the colossal glory the, attaches to them. They have been a splendor of the earth while a hundred generations of men have lived and died, and they are liable to be as much longer. What better monument could any man have his name embossed upon? We are astonished that no CaJ-ifornian CaJ-ifornian rises up to do the service for his state and to link his name forever with the other giants. |