12 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 



Section 7. TIMBER. 



The country immediately along the line of survey is sparse of timber. The varieties are 

 limited, and localities few. Sycamore, cotton-wood, and small willows are found fringing the 

 watercourses. Upon the plains and side slopes of valleys are found oaks in occasional 

 clumps, and isolated trees, giving to the landscape the appearance of an old settled country 

 where the woodman's axe has spared just a sufficiency for the purposes of fuel, and shade for the 

 grazing herds. The wood is verj'^ brash, and, excepting the pine of the mountains, is unfit to 

 be used in construction. The red wood is found in the Santa Cruz mountain, and the long 

 leafed pine on the Gavilan ridge and mountains back of Monterey. In the vicinity of Santa 

 Margarita, near the head of the Salinas, the pine is abundant, also in the mountains at the head 

 of the Santa Maria to the south of the Cuyama plain. This latter locality is, however, difficult 

 of access. Besides these the supply is very limited. In the vicinity of Santa Barbara the 

 mountain slopes are generally bare of trees, oaks and sycamores only are found in the protected 

 gorges and valleys. Tradition states that the timber used in the construction of the mission of 

 Santa Barbara was drawn from the San Kafael mountains, northeast of Santa Inez, at least forty 

 miles distant. Travelling in the mountain districts of California is rendered very trying by the 

 frequency with which one encounters patches of dense masses of shrubbery known as the chemizcU. 

 This term is applied to that growth covering whole mountain slopes and summits, and is made 

 up of many varieties of shrubs, chiefly dwarfish oak, manzanita, and a shrub called red wood. It 

 seldom exceeds ten feet in height, and from the toughness of the wood and density of the growth 

 it is often impracticable to penetrate these thickets without free use of the axe. 



