144 Field Notes at San Emidio. [ZOE 
resorted to in the summer, they would have protected them- 
selves and they would have thrived. They would have been real 
memorial trees, which might yet be telling of themselves and of 
those who planted them, in the year 5893. 
FIELD NOTES AT SAN EMIDIO. 
BY ALICE EASTWOOD. 
The ranch lies at the foot of the chain of hills which connects 
' the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Coast Range. It is 
watered by the San Emidio Creek, which diffuses itself over the 
surrounding country and, perhaps, in the spring, may be said to 
empty into Buena Vista Lake. It is further south than any 
other inhabited house in the San Joaquin Valley, and the win- 
ters are much milder than in adjacent parts of Kern County. 
The flora of the lower hills and plains is the same as that 
_which characterizes the San Joaquin Valley. This season was 
unusually late and unfavorable, for the cold rains retarded 
vegetation. In the hiils especially was the delay apparent. It 
was the end of March ; but the twigs were only budding and 
the snow covered the side of San Emidio Mountain under the 
timber almost to its base. 
Up on the low hills behind the ranch, the meadowlike sum- 
mits were covered with flowers. The haze in the atmosphere 
threw a shadow of unreality over the distant Sierras, where 
the clouds hung low and the summits were white with the deep 
snow. Buena Vista Lake seemed so near. Not a tree hid its 
waters and only the shadows of low, barren hills rested on its 
bosom. It, too, seemed unreal—a phantom lake or a mirage in 
the enshrowding haze. The columns of dust that arose and 
slowly followed each other over the alkali desert were fit inhabi- 
tants of the weird scene. 
These treeless uplands recalled the Alpine parks of the 
Rocky Mountains. Perhaps the green was not so deep, the 
flewers less abundant, and the species fewer in the same area. 
Certainly the coloring was not so rich and varied. ‘The little 
Streams that trickle from the snow-banks and gather volume as 
