1908 



CHRISTMAS IN SIERRA NORTH 



167 



our blankets under a tree, or pitch 

 camp by a mountain stream. Up there 

 in the great pine forest we gather up 

 sacks full of cones and split out frag- 

 rant chunks of pitch-pine for the holi- 

 day fires. 



In September the rangers' wives 

 and children go about the rocky slopes 

 in the sun and gather wild gooseber- 

 ries and elderberries for jams and jel- 

 lies to take to their lower camps. The 

 mountain elderberry (Sambucus glau- 

 ca) of California has all the flavor of 

 wild blackberries. It seems as if it 

 bore no relation to the mawkish ber- 

 ries of the bottom lands. The red and 

 spiny wild gooseberry is equally su- 

 perior to the whole company of culti- 

 vated varieties from Houghton to the 

 Roaring Lion and Crown Bobs of 

 English cottage gardens. 



In the course of time, I think that 

 the Forest Service will establish at 

 their high mountain camps little gar- 

 dens of hardy small fruits, and or- 

 chards of the hardier apples, pears, 

 plums, Russian cherries, chestnuts, 

 black walnuts, and eastern persim- 

 mons. Then one will see the rangers 

 moving home to their camps in the 

 lower mountains attended by a wagon- 

 load or so of fruits, nuts and garden 

 truck for the holidays and the long 

 winter. But they will still gather the 

 wild berries, taking what they can 

 get (as now) in the struggle with 

 birds, squirrels and Indians. 



After we come down from the 

 mountain camps away up in the pines, 

 there is a long pause of preparation. 

 Winter does not descend suddenly up- 

 on us. We make trips back and forth 

 and move our belongings, fasten up 

 our cabins, let down the wires on our 

 fences so that the snow will not break 

 them. Sometimes we find time to 

 sow rye and clover in order that there 

 shall be some early feed for the horses. 



Most of these highland camps, you 

 know, are six and seven thousand feet 

 up in the air. Away back are still 

 higher camps, which the grazing rang- 

 ers visit ; some of these are eight and 

 ten thousand feet up, and no one will 

 ever have much of a garden there. I 



used to try radishes and lettuce in such 

 places, but not with any success. Wa- 

 tercress and rhubarb are about the 

 limit. 



So you see all the young rangers of 

 the highest Sierras come out to our 

 forest camps, such as Ellis Meadow, 

 and when we have bearing orchards of 

 old-fashioned russets, pippins, green- 

 ings and spitzenbergs, each one of 

 these mountain lads will get a share 

 and pack them down to his cabin. As 

 it is, they share in the berries and veg- 

 etables. 



Somehow the spirit of the service, 

 which is "All for each and each for 

 all," centers wonderfully in our rough 

 mountain camps, and is nowhere more 

 evident than as we begin to gather in 

 and move down to the lower camps. 



By the middle of October the work 

 is in the lower country, not in the 

 highlands. We find time to start gar- 

 dens a little, to rake in some flower 

 seeds, to dig and cultivate some. 

 Mostly, however, aside from the regu- 

 lar work, we "get in supplies" while 

 the long, hard roads to the valley are 

 still passable. No one who does not 

 know this country, year m and year 

 out, can imagine how the bottom some- 

 times falls out of these roads and 

 travel stops, no matter what you hap- 

 pen to want. The mails pull through, 

 but at what cost in time, money, horse- 

 flesh and risk of life and limb no one is 

 able to estimate. 



But all winter long the work of the 

 forest goes on. There are bridges to 

 build, old trails and roads to repair 

 and "brush out," new trails to hang 

 along canyon edges. People have busi- 

 ness with us — cattle men must be met 

 and small timber sales carried on. So 

 the rangers put on waterproofs in bad 

 weather and keep coming and going. 

 Sometimes the weather is simply heav- 

 enly for weeks at a time ; clear airs 

 move perpetually through the forest ; 

 clear skies bend overhead ; the new 

 grass grows and the buds swell, and 

 the whole earth is wonderful to dwell 

 on. Sometimes, on the other hand, 

 rangers are sent out on forest business 



