274 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



The 



substitute 

 of nature. 



Laurel and 

 rhodo- 

 dendron. 



The bushes make no such show on the face 

 of the earth as the trees, though perhaps they 

 cover more territory ; and, moreover, they are 

 frequently a secondary rather than a primary 

 growth a substitute rather than an original. 

 Nature is fertile in resources, and wherever the 

 earth is scarred by fire, tempest, or the axe, an 

 effort is put forth to cover the spot with a new 

 growth. Many of the shrubs and bushes and 

 small-bunched thickets of the woods and hills 

 are the result. In the coal regions of Pennsyl- 

 vania, where the timber has been destroyed and 

 many of the valleys have been turned into mere 

 sluices and drainways for the black waters of 

 coal mines, the laurel and the rhododendron 

 grow in great profusion, covering valley, hill, 

 and mountain for miles at a stretch. In the 

 early summer, when they are in bloom, they are 

 really splendid in effect. All the mountain 

 seems in blossom, and along the ridges the color 

 is banked up against the blue sky in pink and 

 red clouds. In Southern California nature was 

 probably never prodigal in the planting of forest- 

 trees ; but the neglect is atoned for by almost 

 endless varieties of small bushes and trees that 

 robe the mountains and the foothills in a mantle 

 of many colors at all seasons of the year. Be- 



