AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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Photo 6y Neal T. Childs. 



A Meadow Reverting to a Forest. 



HERE THE MEADOW HAS GONE FAR TOWARD BECOMING A PORTION OF THE SURROUNDING FOREST AND IS NOW WELL 



COVERED WITH A NATURAL SEEDLING OF JEFFREY PINE. 



he will come into a meadow where 

 lichens give place to sedges, but along 

 its lower borders he will find the tell- 

 tale marks deep in the granite where 

 the ice slipped over the saucerlike brim 

 of what was once a glacier lake. Per- 

 haps only stunted foxtail pine or white 

 barked pine fringe its border and frost 

 is here every night in the year, but the 

 succession is plain till he reaches a level 

 of eight to nine thousand feet when he 

 comes to a normal meadow lush with 

 grass and spangled with flowers. White 

 Fir, Red Fir, and Sugar Pine come 

 down its borders, and cattle munch 

 knee deep in content, but along its rim 

 lie the shells of mussels that lived in 

 the ancient lake now long gone. 



Nor is the evolution complete. Still 

 the meadows change. You will find 

 meadows that are changing today, 

 meadows that have gone dry, as the 

 mountaineer says. When the water 

 level is lowered owing to erosion or 

 other cause, the grass in a meadow gives 

 way to other vegetation. Sage brush 

 generally is the first intruder. This in 

 turn is followed by a sprinkling of 

 mountain juniper (/. occidentalis), and 

 lastly by Yellow Pine and Incense 

 Cedar. There are many meadows in 

 the Sierras today which are quite 



rapidly reverting to the forest. Thrifty 

 stands of pine and cedar are found 

 where only grass cover was known. 



It is in these "worn-out meadows" 

 that the forester has a problem to solve. 

 Shall the meadow be irrigated and 

 maintained as grazing land or shall it 

 be allowed to revert to the forest and 

 become a timber producing unit? Here 

 is a nice problem for the forest student 

 who is interested in land values. 



To the average citizen, however, it is 

 as a natural feature that the mountain 

 meadow will always be of chief interest. 

 Coupled with their natural beauty 

 there is also a thread of romance that 

 appeals to the traveller. Once the graz- 

 ing lands of the Spaniard where the 

 herds of the great haciendas roamed at 

 will in the far-off times before the 

 Gringo came, the mountain meadows 

 hold in their names some of the charm 

 of the halcyon days. Such names as 

 Albinita, Paloma, Bonita (pretty little 

 place), Casa Viejo — musical names 

 whose charm lingers like the morning 

 mist over meadows and in these Anglo- 

 Saxon days of grazing fees and water- 

 power sites keep for the tourist high 

 in the Sierra fastnesses a whisper of the 

 romance of life in Old California. 



