vot. Iv.}| Native Habits of Sequoia Gigantea. 143 
a former paper in this periodical, and are now well known. But 
from the inspection of the various localities we can draw some 
conclusions of general interest. All the groves are protected 
from the north winds more or less, and all face the south and 
west. All groves grow where moisture is abundant, always 
around springs, creeks, ponds or meadows, or at least in places 
where moisture never fails. If we inspect a single grove we 
always find the largest, handsomest and healthiest tree near the 
water, at the edge of a meadow or stream. The further away 
from the water the drier the soil, the smaller and poorer are the 
trees. This is an invariable fact in every grove. In many 
instances the largest and finest trees circle around a beautiful 
meadow, crowding each other, where space is available, or 
towering singly where there is only ground enough for one. 
This is, for instance, the case with the ‘‘ Meadow Maid,” in 
“the Bear Creek grove, one of the handsomest and most sym- 
metrical of all the Sequoias. This tree grows on a low knoll, in 
the midst of a meadow which is always boggy and water-soaked. 
Sequoia trunks and cones have been dug up out of many 
wells on the plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, 
indisputable proof that the tree in former ages extended to the 
plains. With the advent of a drier and warmer climate the trees 
retreated to the hills, higher in the south, lower in the north. 
At last they became isolated groves, finally, in some localities, 
isolated trees. Only in the southern groves do we find an abund- 
ance of young trees; in some of the northern groves we search 
in vain for any seedlings. What conclusion can we draw from 
this? That the Seguota gigantea delights in rich and wet soil, 
in sheltered positions, and that it occurs in groves. The folly of 
planting this tree in dry, exposed places, singly or in rows, as 
is now done everywhere in this State, as well as in other parts of 
the United States and in Europe, is therefore evident. The 
greater the failure, the dryer the soil where the tree is planted. 
Lately I passed an avenue of Sequoias which were all dying out. 
The cause lay near at hand—dry soil, no artificial irrigation, no 
rain for six months, hard adobe soil, full exposure to winds, the 
trees planted in rows or singly. If these trees had been set in 
groups of a hundred on rich, moist land, where irrigation can be 
