California Condor Eben McMillan 25 april 1964 at 3:00 A.M., the moon was shining brightly but by 5:00 A.M. bad weather had closed in again and a cold fog kept visibility to a minimum. We breakfasted and waited until 8:00 A.M. for the weather to clear. No sign of clearing at 8:15 A.M. So we drove back to the Santa Barbara Potrero's on Sierra Madre Ridge where the clouds were higher and the wind not so cold. Here we studied the "Re-key" activities that are being conducted by the U.S. Forest Service in attempting to tear out sections of brush along the top of this mountain ridge and convert these de-brushed spots into grassland. From all evidence it seemed to us that the money being spent to convert these areas could never in any way be justified on the amount of livestock forage they would produce were they even to be developed to a point whereby their productivity would match that of the best soils in the Potreros nearby. And I think this could ever be accomplished should be out of the question, for most of these spots being cleared of brush are now, or have been brushlands by virtue of the fact that the soils underlying them are mostly porous limestone rock on which the only soil to be found is the direct result of the residue from the brush that has grown here over the years has deposited and support brush for the very reason that brush is all that will thin grow here over a long period of time. Once these soils are eroded away by either wind or water, not even brush will grow. Thus it appears that this development going on here is both a folly and a farce.