Thoughts on Forestry in California. 171 



mentmg with every kind of fruit, to an extent which is simply wonderful, 

 the noble indigenous trees of the state have been sadly neglected. Indeed, 

 with the exception of a few noble specimens in the capitol grounds at Sacra- 

 mento, we rarely find a specimen, except Cupressus macrocarpa and Pinus 

 insignis (the Monterey pine and Monterey cypress), planted everywhere, 

 while specimens of Seqitoia gigantea, S. sempervirens, Cupressus Lawsoniana, 

 C. Goveniana, Thuja gigantea, Libocedrus decurrens, Pseudotsuga Douglasii, Ahits 

 Menziesii, Picea litchensis of Engl., Abies concolor, and other noble silver firs 

 and nobler pines, are rarely to be met with. 



Forestry is a subject of great importance to this state, and the time will 

 soon arrive when it can not longer be neglected. The conditions here differ 

 so materially from the Atlantic slope that our experience will not avail to 

 any great extent here. Forestry here must be confined mainly to desert 

 and hilly lands that can not be irrigated. A transient visitor from the east, 

 looking from the window of a sleeping-car, would see a very discouraging 

 prospect. The desert is certainly' not promising to him, and the hills look 

 little better. 



This word desert is not well understood. Many agriculturists and horti- 

 culturists in Kansas and Nebraska claim that they have brought their land 

 from a desert to rich, fertile land within two or three decades. They tell 

 you that their states are a part of the great American desert, and refer you 

 to a school geography to prove what they say, but they do not seem to notice 

 the fact that in this same school-book there are wood-cuts of Indians chasing 

 immense herds of buffaloes, wading through very tall grass. When the emi- 

 gration of 1849 went through the territory of which Kansas and Nebraska is 

 now a part — and that was before there was a white settler in the territory — 

 the land lying between the Missouri river and the Rocky mountains was 

 called the plains. The desert of the " forty-niners " lay between the sink of 

 the Humboldt and the Sierra Nevada mountains, and many years previous 

 to that time, the Santa Fe traders crossed the plains from Leavenworth to 

 Santa F^. The settlers in Kansas and Nebraska claim that they can grow 

 cultivated crops where they could not be grown twenty-five years ago. This 

 is undoubtedly true, and can be readily accounted for. 



Before the whites settled west of the Missouri river, the land thruugh 

 central Kansas and Nebraska was covered with buffalo grass, which kept the 

 rains from penetrating the ground almost as effectually as would a shingled 

 roof. I have run my cane into the ground a few minutes after it had been 

 flooded with rain, and found it dry as dust two inches from the surface. The 

 rain ran off in torrents into the ravines and draws, without having a per- 

 ceptible effect except on the surface. You might see the plains covered 

 with water, looking like a lake with man}' islands, and within two hours 

 from that time, scarcely a sign that there had been any rain at all. Since 

 that time millions of acres have been plowed in Kansas and Nebraska, and, 

 aside from this, 147,000 acres have been planted with forest trees in Kansas 

 (aside from a large number planted last year), and a great many more have 

 been planted in Nebraska than in Kansas. 



