356 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



more complete, owing to the more friable character 

 of the soil, and its sloping position. The slant 

 digging and down-raking action of hoofs on the 

 steeper slopes of moraines has uprooted and bu 

 ried many of the tender plants from year to 

 year, without allowing them time to mature their 

 seeds. The shrubs, too, are badly bitten, especially 

 the various species of ceanothus. Fortunately, 

 neither sheep nor cattle care to feed on the manza- 

 nita, spiraea, or adenostoma ; and these fine honey- 

 bushes are too stiff and tall, or grow in places too 

 rough and inaccessible, to be trodden under foot. 

 Also the canon walls and gorges, which form so 

 considerable a part of the area of the range, while 

 inaccessible to domestic sheep, are well fringed 

 with honey-shrubs, and contain thousands of 

 lovely bee-gardens, lying hid in narrow side-canons 

 and recesses fenced with avalanche taluses, and on 

 the top of flat, projecting headlands, where only 

 bees would think to look for them. 



But, on the other hand, a great portion of the 

 woody plants that escape the feet and teeth of the 

 sheep are destroyed by the shepherds by means of 

 running fires, which are set everywhere during the 

 dry autumn for the purpose of burning off the old 

 fallen trunks and underbrush, with a view to im 

 proving the pastures, and making more open ways 

 for the flocks. These destructive sheep-fires sweep 

 through nearly the entire forest belt of the range, 

 from one extremity to the other, consuming not 

 only the underbrush, but the young trees and seed 

 lings on which the permanence of the forests de 

 pends ; thus setting in motion a long train of evils 



