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COPY WM.G. KERCKHOFF, T. P. LUKENS, CHARLES SILENT. JOHN F. FRANCIS, M. L. GRAFF, ADOLPH PETSCH, ABBOT KINNEY. Forest
and water Assoriation of Lus Angeles county. Los Angeles Branch of the Forest and Water Society of Southern California.
WM.G.KERCKHOFF. president, 254 S. Los Angeles St., T.P.LUKENS, Vice-pres., pasadena. WM.H.KNIGHT, Secretary, 27Bryson
block. Lus Angeles, Cal. April 28, 1899. To the Honorable SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, Washington, D. C. Dear Sir:
The Forest and Water Association of Los Angeles County desires most respectfully to call your attention to the following facts:
The conservation of our mountain forests is a work of the most vital importance to the people of Southern California. In noother
locality of the United States is the welfare of its people so dependent on the protection of its forests, and the preservation
of its water sheds. During the past three years a very large proportion of our forest reservations has been devastated and
denuded by forest fires and the herding of sheep and other stock upon them, and the damage and loss to Southern California
from these causes has been incalculable. We are now approaching the dry season of another year, in a succession of years
with a very limited rainfall, and as yet with nosteps taken, so far as we have learned, to provide a force of men at all adequate
to properly care for these reservations during the coming dry season; and it is imperative that some suitable action be taken
at once in the line of caring for these reservations in a manner commensurate with the great importance of the work. We would,
most respectfully yet most urgently, request that you grant us, at the earliest possible time, adequate aid for properly caring
for these reservations, and would suggest: 1. That the herding of sheep or other stock upon the reservations, or the passage
of stock over them, (which is often used as a pretense in order to get an opportunity to use them for pasture) be absolutely
prohibited. 2. Large portions of the Sierra Madre Range are very rugged and precipitous, being almost inaccessible except
by the use of trails, the construction of which should be provided for so that fires may be readily combatted., 3. The forest
reservations are largely used for the purpose of camping in the summer time, and many of the forest fires are to tributable
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