Mr. HOLLAND. And you think that that can be done more efficiently by the National Park Service than by the Forest Service?

Mr. TAPPAAN. Yes; they have the machinery, and I think they have demonstrated they have the ability as well.

Senator ODDIE. There is one other matter that has been raised, Mr. Tappaan, in regard to forest fires. We have had considerable discussion in our various hearings regarding the effect of grazing on the fire hazard, and it has been stated to us by numbers of witnesses that grazing in the forests has resulted in reducing the fire hazard in certain sections.

Mr. TAPPAAN. There is no question but that that is absolutely true, but I will answer you this way. Before our present régime they reduced the fire hazard by burning the forest. Grazing is a good deal the same way. They burn the forest with the cattle instead of with actual fire. And there is no question but if you destroy the trees, the young growth, as cattle do, and sheep do to the nth degree, you have reduced your fire. Anyone that says that is not true does not know anything about it.

But, on the other hand, it has been my observation that where a park area is used for camping purposes the chances of fire are reduced, because every person in that area is a fire warden, and you have hundreds of eyes for protection. And you have the young growth.

And from another standpoint, as these gentlemen will tell you also, the camper is a scavenger, because he takes the dead branches and undergrowth and burns them in his campfire. And that is where your greatest fire hazard comes. Windfalls, a great amount of branches at the foot of a big tree, a fire from lightning or something else, and your big tree is gone. Whereas if you have campers around there the campers will always take the dead branches. And I have gone into rather inaccessible parts of the country, and I have had to go out to snag in firewood from a great distance just because they pick it up. And so they reduce the fire hazard to a greater extent than we think of. Of course, on the other hand, I haven't a doubt it has been stated to you gentlemen that everyone that goes into the mountains is a potential fire hazard, because he throws away cigarettes and burns the place up. There are cases where that happens. But I think where one fire actually starts that way that causes damage, hundreds start from lightning and spontaneous combustion. This year I rode in on the south fork of the San Joaquin, and in going 3 miles I saw three trees fired by lightning up there, and that is more fire than I saw anywhere else in the mountains this present year.

STATEMENT OF HON. STEPHEN T. MATHER, DIRECTOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. MATHER. I might say, just to supplement that, that the last year, which was the worst fire year in the history of the high Sierras, we had no serious fires in any of the national parks. We were able to control all the fires of any kind in there, and when people were kept out of the national forests in adjoining areas serious fires occurred in there, but there was not a single fire that

occurred in the national parks that we did not get under control within a few hours' time.

And I want to say that that point is very well taken by Mr. Tappaan in regard to the presence of the campers keeping down fires. In certain forest areas last year no one was allowed to go in, so as to save the hazard of fire, and many lightning fires started, and the absence of people there, campers, undoubtedly helped very materially to keep those fires burning.

I was in Yosemite this year. Coming in at about 11 or 12 o'clock at night into the Yosemite Valley I saw five or six lightning fires on which our ranger forces were working, and by 10 or 11 o'clock the next morning all of those fires were absolutely under control. That was at the time when there was a series of something like a hundred or a hundred and fifty fires down in the Sierras, caused by peculiar thunderstorm conditions, and I can say that on account of the pres ence of campers and our ranger service we were able to throttle down those fires when they occurred in the national parks.

We have only had one serious fire this year in any national park, and that occurred in the Glacier National Park. I happened to be present when the fire occurred, and with the aid of the new special light pumps, the idea of which I found over in Jasper Park in Canada, which enabled us to take water right directly from the streams in a thousand or two thousand feet, we were able to kill what was developing into a great big crown fire. These streams of water, which were very powerful, would put the fire out as they would reach the top of a 75 foot or 100 foot tree. And with the ail of those pumps, which we now keep in all of the parks, plus a ranger force and the assistance of the campers, which Mr. Tappaan has so very well brought out, we have been able to keep the fires down to a minimum, and there is never a year so dry but what we are not willing to invite the people to come in just as freely as we would in any

year.

Senator ODDIE. Is it as important to check fires in a forest as quickly as it is to check them in a city?

Mr. MATHER. It is indeed, and I hope that this coming year the appropriations committee instead of simply giving us the $25,000 or $50,000 which they give us every year to use in fighting fires, will let us use that same money in preventing fires, we can do this by expending money for the purchas of these handy pumps which can be loaded on a mule's back, and with a thousand or two thousand feet of hose, and with the use of canvas reservoirs and additional pumping, water can be relayed up another 2,000 feet. We can thus cover an extremely large area even with a limited water supply.

Senator ODDIE. Do you believe that the question of fire prevention has been overlook d largely, by our Government?

Mr. MATHER. I must say that in my study that I made last year in the Canadian national parks, I found that they were somewhat ahead of us in using these latest methods, but since that time, with the publicity that has been obtained-there was quite an interesting article in the Saturday Evening Post about the work that was done in the Canadian parks by these special pumps-we have learned to use them, and both the Forest Service and the Park Service are buying these types of pumps very freely now, and the result is that we

are able to work more extensively to prevent fires than we have been in the past.

Senator ODDIE. Can you think of anything else of more importance to the economic welfare of this western country and to the whole country than the question of adequate fire protection?

Mr. MATHER. Absolutely not. Fire protection of our great natural wealth, the forests, is extremely valuable, not only from the actual saving of the timber, but also in the protection of the watershed.

Mr. TAPPAAN. They have been very successful up there also with their little chemicals.

Senator ODDIE. Unless you have some further statement, that will ball, Mr. Tappaan, thank you.

STATEMENT OF S. C. EVANS, ARGICULTURIST, MAYOR OF THE CITY OF RIVERSIDE, CALIF.

Senator ODDIE. Mr. Evans, will you please state your name, your occupation, and your residence.

Mr. EVANS. S. C. Evans; agriculturist; mayor of the city of Riverside, Calif.

Senator ODDIE. Mr. Evans, we would be glad to have you make any statement you have to make, in your own way.

Mr. EVANS. I came to California in 1877. I was naturally thrown into a new, wild country when horses were abundant, and so I rode all over these mountains in the southern part of the State for many years. Since then, because of certain public activities, I have been through practically every park of any consequence in the United States, except those in the extreme northeast, and also in most of the Canadian parks, and I have been through most of our national parks. I did that first because I like the mountains, and because there were things there that attracted me. I am, like lots of other people, interested in natural history, and the observance of the animals and the trees and the flowers.

I represent a city that in a manner following the lead of Los Angeles and San Bernardino and some other cities we maintain municipal playgrounds in these mountains as activities of our cities under leases from the Government. And the same questions of opposition to any enlargement of the national park area in modified form has been voiced to our cities going into the mountains and changing these meadows into baseball grounds, and croquet grounds, and cabins, and community houses, and things of that kind.

Riverside has a very fine lease from the Government in Bear Valley of 23 acres. Los Angeles has several of these community settlements, where I have seen them bring up, for instance, hundreds of girls out of the department stores here for a two weeks' vacation. They would go away an entirely different group of people. I think they had every Hebrew of Los Angeles up there at one time. It seemed so to me. It must have been some society or organization.

I have driven in these mountains in the daytime and night time, and all kinds of hours, and talked to a great many of these people. At one time down at Palm Canyon, in Riverside County, a very wild and delightful place, at 2 o'clock in the morning 200 Russian Jews turned up there in automobiles from Los Angeles. I could go on and give you many, many instances of that.

Now, I lived in a country where stock ran wild in the early days, both cattle and sheep. The range was free, and gradually as civilization came in-and I can say amen to everything that Mr. Tappaan has said these free ranges gave way to a greater use which has certainly redounded to the pleasure and enjoyment and prosperity of a vastly greater number of people. I can have sympathy, and I do, with people who have to change conditions on account of changed economic, social laws, but these objections have been entered in California to all the laws that we have adopted, say, in the last 15 years, that some people said were often revolutionary, and hardships were put on large groups of people. Take the child labor law, take the eight hour law, take the workmen's compensation, take the minimum wage-I could go on and enumerate plenty of them-large groups of people had to readjust themselves and pay more for what they had theretofore enjoyed for the same thing. But it was in the interest of humanity, and all those people, almost to a man, who objected then, are about the strongest boosters now. Because they have naturally had to fall in with the new economic and social conditions.

Now, I am not as intimately connected with this particular section, the Sequoia and Grant Parks, as Mr. Tappaan is, but I am reasonably acquainted with it, I have been through it, and have talked to very many people in the near-by towns that have been over it very, very thoroughly, and have some very close friends there. and they tell me exactly what Mr. Tappaan has said.

I believe that as far as the cattle industry is concerned, or the sheep industry, that there are other places that with some added expense perhaps they can enjoy and make their livelihood there, and the change would mean much less to them than it would mean to deny access to these very delightful places to others.

Take it in Riverside County, for instance. They have moved out of many of the places they used to enjoy, and have centered very largely around the Temecula country, which is not a tourist or a camping country, but is strictly a cattle country, and they have had to go, just like the agriculturalist or the horticulturalist, into the irrigation of land, and the raising of feed on the range by water. instead of grazing so much.

Now, many of these objections are not well founded in the sense that they are not big enough to be of a material objection. I will instance it in this way. In Riverside County at Palm Springs is an Indian reservation where many of us have been trying to get a national monument established, because it has great historic interest, it has great scenic beauty, and has the glamour of the old Indian life. It is along the old stage line that ran through California to Arizona before there was any railroad. It is everything that would bring people that want sentiment and color to a place. Well, now, one of the strongest objections by the Indians to the taking of that land there has been that they cut wood from there, and they roam their cattle in there. I have known that country intimately for 40 years. Why, a bunch of us could contribute and pay for all the cattle that they would feed up there, and it would not cost us $5 apiece. They can not feed any number. Say, a dozen or 15 at the outside. The objection is not of enough importance, and

the people concerned who make the objections are not numerically enough people to go against the large number of people who want this outdoor life.

Now we have in the latter years several new roads into the mountains. I drive usually one road and come back the other. They are all full of automobiles; even horses, even mule teams. I met a sixhorse team the last time going up to Bear Valley, 7,000 feet in elevation. These used to be summer camps. Now, many of our people want these camps kept up in the winter. Our city of 30,000 people provides a yearly caretaker, and they are going up now for winter sports for a week or two weeks at a time, or for week-ends. And it is a very delightful outdoor occupation.

It has resulted, I think, primarily in quite a number of our women folks going into the study of botany. One lady this year has put in nearly six weeks up there in making collections of the native plants. And it has resulted in the formation of clubs to study the birds and the animals, the buying of books that relate to their habits, the desire to get away from the killing of the animals, and their preservation. I have driven the last four years in these mountains repeatedly, and this last year a great many times day and night, and I have seen one deer, just one. I can take you to inaccessible places where there are deer. But our game in southern California is fast disappearing. The few people that go out and have the physical energy or ability to enjoy it, they simply are annihilating the game. The automobile and the improved gun is simply practically destroying them. Where there were tens of thousands of quail, you ride through Riverside County to-day and in a few orange orchards and in a few protected areas where a man has a large ranch you may see 10 or 15 or 25 quail. But you will hunt for two weeks and you can not find a covey of quail of any considerable size. At the rate we are going, in five years you won't hear a quail call. Our deer and many of our other animals are in the same fix.

I never enjoyed anything more than I did through Yellowstone to see the animals that were standing around naturally, just as nature made them. A great many people get a delight out of it. Some of us have been able, by approaching the school authorities, to get them to bear down a little bit on the humanitarian side of the preservation of these grand animals like the deer and the buffalo and the elk and the grey squirrel, and other beautiful animals, and some of our birds that have more or less plumage to them, and it has resulted in a very greatly changed attitude toward the preservation of the bird life and flowers and trees.

Take at Palm Springs again, the former superintendent of schools of our county was not very well, and he resigned and went down there and lived in that canyon for a year or two. And right across the hill, within a half a mile of his little cabin, he said that in his time of observance--say, four or five years-that that hillside of 5 acres had practically been denuded of several very delightful growths by people just going up there pulling them up and putting them on their running boards of their automobiles, carrying them about 10 miles, and throwing them away. They did not do anybody any particular good. Now, through the good offices of the Indian Service, of Mr. Mather who was down there, and a few inter