Cdniferm of the Rocky Mountains. 119 



in seeking to remedy the difficulties of rearing tlie evergreens 

 now under cultivation, to look toward the dry cold mountain 

 region on our west, and see if lie cannot there find trees more 

 suitable for his wants — trees that can endure the great extremes 

 of heat, cold and droughts of this climate. This consideration 

 induces me to describe these evergreens of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains with a little more minuteness. 



The Pinus Edulis is first seen near the foot hills of the 

 mountains, on rocky points, and ridges, and in the out-lying 

 hills, where it can receive but a scant supply of moisture. 

 Grain in its neighborhood is only grown by irrigation. Here 

 the summers are only long enough to ripen beans, and the 

 smallest, and earliest variety of corn. The best trees are 

 found in regions too elevated to produce any cultivated 

 crop. It avoids the beds of the streams, and is seldom found 

 in the bottoms of the valleys, where water from melting snows 

 or rains may run. On the high table lands, ridges, and steep 

 rocky mountain sides, it takes its strongest hold, and flourishes 

 best. The leaves are in pairs, two inches long, dark green, 

 coarse and ridged, and are persistent for two or more years. 

 The tree gives a dense shade, and makes an excellent wind 

 breaker. It is of too slow growth for general use, as an orna- 

 mental or forest tree ; but on hard, rocky, dry ridges, and at the 

 brow of steep table lands, it would thrive well. When at the 

 end a hundred years, the tree has reached thirty or forty feet 

 in height, and as many in the diameter of its rounded top, it 

 possesses great beauty, and gives its biennial crop of nuts, and 

 would then be greatly esteemed. It would never suft'er from 

 the droughts of summer, or be likely to perish from the cold, 

 or winds of winter as it thrives to the very highest limit of 

 the pines, and nearly to the line of dayly fi'osts. 



Pinus Englemani^ Engleman's pine is most deserving of 

 attention. This is also found in the foot hills and out-lying 

 mountains, but it is within, and high up the steep and pre- 

 cipitous snow-capped ranges, where it grows in greatest per- 



