CALIFORNIA 



1060 



CALIFORNIA 



makes orange-growing possible outside of the 

 regular orange region. This may be seen in 

 Tulare County. Again, as at Watsonville, a 

 sharp rise of ground will condense ocean cur- 

 rents into cool fogs of long duration, and an 

 apple-growing region is created. 



Distinctive Plants and Animals. It is the 

 climatic conditions which determine the plant 

 life of a region, and in lesser degree its animal 

 life, and since California is in a sense an 

 "inland island," walled in by mountains and 

 differing from even its neighboring states in 

 climate, it has developed a vegetation largely 

 its own. All the growths except the forest 

 trees, which are somewhat independent of sur- 

 face moisture, are at their best during the 

 rainy season, and throughout much of the 

 state little green is to be seen during the sum- 

 mer months except in the irrigated sections. 

 The rounded hills covered with a thick mat 

 of sun-dried grass, dotted everywhere with 

 dusty gray-green scrub oaks, are most familiar 

 summer sights, but in the rainy winter every- 

 thing is a riot of grass and flowers. 



In so large a state there are certain to be 

 distinct zones of vegetation. The coast regions 

 of the north have gigantic forests, mostly of 

 cone-bearing trees, which are here found in 

 greater variety and profusion than anywhere 

 else on earth, and the mountains, both north 

 and south, have such forest growths above a 

 certain altitude. Yellow pine, sugar pine, fir, 

 spruce, cedar and hemlock all are there; but 

 most interesting and distinctive of all is the 

 sequoia, which grows nowhere but in Cali- 

 fornia. Of this evergreen tree there are two 

 species, the redwoods and the big trees, specifi- 

 cally so called. The former occur as magnifi- 

 cent forests over much of the northern region; 

 the latter, the oldest and largest trees on earth, 

 form scattered groves on the western slopes 

 of the Sierra Nevadas. It is difficult for the 

 mind to grasp the age of these forest mon- 

 archs some of them, authorities declare, must 

 have been great trees in the days when Abra- 

 ham went out from Ur of the Chaldees. See 

 REDWOOD; SEQUOIA. 



Other trees which grow in few places else- 

 where in North America are the eucalyptus, 

 with its narrow, drooping leaves; the Monterey 

 cypress, a scraggy, picturesque, Japanese-look- 

 ing tree much used for ornamental purposes in 

 gardens; the madrona, a brilliant splash of 

 color when its thin, bright-red outer bark peels 

 off and showe the vivid green beneath ; and the 

 pepper tree, one of the most beautiful . trees in 



the world, with spreading branches, feathery 

 leaves and long clusters of bright-red berries. 



To enumerate the flowers which grow in 

 California would be an almost endless task, so 

 profusely do they flourish everywhere. The 

 beautiful California poppy grows wild, but is 

 much grown as a garden plant as well. The 

 poinsettia, with its brilliant red leaves sur- 

 rounding the insignificant little flower, has 

 come to be widely known, and is grown in 

 greenhouses farther east, where it is popular 

 as a Christmas decoration, but nowhere else 

 does it become so large or so gorgeous as in 

 California. That may be said as well of other 

 plants of the geranium, for instance, which is 

 elsewhere a "pot plant" or a garden plant of 

 moderate size, but in California attains a 

 vinelike growth and stretches to the very roofs 

 of the bungalows. But the glory of the state 

 is its roses. Roses of every variety, even those 

 perfect kinds which the Easterner looks upon 

 only as hothouse flowers, grow everywhere, and 

 many a house is covered to its roof with thick- 

 blossoming vines. 



Animals. In the days before the earliest 

 white men entered California, many animals 

 to-day unknown there roamed in its forests 

 and mountains the tapir, the wild horse, the 

 lion and even the elephant. And the white 

 men, when they came, found the cougar, the 

 elk, the coyote, and, most characteristic of all, 

 the grizzly bear. To-day the bears are found 

 only in the wildest parts of the state, while 

 the cougar hides in the rocks or the chaparral, 

 as the thick, brushy growths are called. Coy- 

 otes are still numerous, and in the mountains 

 deer are to be found. Among birds, the quail, 

 so much hunted for food, is most widely 

 known, but the species not found elsewhere 

 are the more interesting. These include the 

 road runner (which see), a peculiar woodpecker 

 and many song birds. 



One of the animals which every visitor to 

 California wants to see is the seal, or more 

 properly, sea lion. Some of these sea lions 

 attain a great size, occasional specimens weigh- 

 ing as much as a ton. Various places along 

 the rocky coast are still their haunts, but 

 nowhere can they be observed better than on 

 their great rookeries opposite the Cliff House 

 in San Francisco. 



Agriculture. The products of California are 

 as varied as its surface, and few are the temper- 

 ate or semi-tropical crops which cannot be 

 grown, at least in some sections. For a time 

 wheat was the great product, and on the im- 





