336 Trees of Southern California. [zoe 



We have then in these mountains a great Yellow Pine belt of 

 mixed coniferous trees;* at its upper edge a belt of Pimis contorta 

 is indicated, capped by a well-defined belt of Finns albicaiilis; on 

 the seaward side it is based on a zone of Pseudotsuga, and on 

 the desert side by a belt of Juniper superimposed on one of 

 Pifion. The smaller forests to the west and south, so far as 

 known, include only the spruce and yellow pine belts. 



ECONOMIC ASPECTS. 



In the San Jacinto cottonwoods a small mill was for a time 

 employed in turning out material for orange boxes, but with 

 this exception the trees of the lower altitudes have been utilized 

 only as a source of fuel supply, and a most important one for a 

 region so distant from good coal measures. 



The San Bernardino forest was at once drawn upon for lum- 

 ber by the first American settlers in the subjacent valleys, and 

 has been continuously worked up to the present day. Opera- 

 tions have been confined to the watershed of the Mojave, the 

 only part of the forest sufficiently accessible to be worked with 

 profit under present market conditions. Of the original forest 

 of this watershed less than one-third now remains. In it are 

 now located eight steam saw mills, capable of a total output of 

 ten million feet B. M. in a summer run of six months. From 

 various causes, dullness of business, exhaustion of the timber 

 supply, and the competition of northern lumber, only two or 

 three of these mills have been operated during the last two 

 years, and all but three of them would entirely use up 

 their accessible timber in one or two seasons' run. The 

 product is drawn by horse teams to San Bernardino, where it 

 has sold within late years at from twenty to sixteen dollars per 

 thousand B. M., nine to seven dollars of the price being charge- 

 able to freight. Most of the lumber is, of course, yellow pine. 

 Mill men claim that of this there are two kinds; one, recognized 

 by the broad plates of the bark, has a thin sap-wood, and the 

 wood is soft, straight-grained and durable, and yields a good 



* As already stated, the different species composing this belt are not 

 segregated in separate zones, but closer observation will probably show that 

 Piiius Jeffnyi and Libocedrits dec iir reus have an upper limit somewhere 

 between 7000 and 8ooo feet. 



