176 



NATURE 



\yuwe 20', 1889 



purchaser has the option of taking a certain number of 

 thousands at the same rate. As soon as the purchase 

 money has been paid, the oysters are handed over to the 

 purchaser, who sends them off by train, or deposits them 

 in the kottoo at the northern end of the camp, where 

 various natural agents bring about the requisite process 

 of dissolution of the animal matter. After some days 

 the residue is carefully washed, the prevailing maggots 

 skimmed off, and a careful search made for the pearls. 

 Pearl Camp. Edgar Thurston. 



CALIFORNIAN FORESTRY. 



IT is matter for great satisfaction to learn that the "people 

 of the State of California represented in Senate and 

 Assembly" have created a Board of Forestry for the 

 purpose of collecting and diffusing information with 

 regard to forestry, tree-culture, and tree-preservation. 

 The readers of Nature will not fail to appreciate 

 the economic significance of wisely administered forest 

 laws so far as those laws are based upon scientific know- 

 ledge, and there are special reasons why they should feel 

 an interest in the forests of the Pacific slope. They will 

 consequently be glad to learn from the second biennial 

 Report of the State Board of Forestry now before us 

 that whereas, " under the old conditions, waste, destruc- 

 tion, and violation of law were rife, . . , the activity of 

 the Board in attempting a reform, and the consequent 

 investigations of the Government, have had a most 

 gratifying result." Fires have been reduced in frequency 

 and extent, watersheds and springs have been protected, 

 slopes saved from further denudation, and replanting 

 effected. It seems strange that, with so great a wealth of 

 native trees, replanting should have become necessary, 

 and still more that the Eucalypts of Australia should be 

 preferred for this purpose to the pines of the Sierras. 

 Nevertheless there are many sites where drought-resist- 

 ing trees are specially required, and in which some of 

 the Eucalypts, such as vit/iinalts and corytiocalyx, do 

 better than the pines. E.xperimental stations have been 

 established under different conditions of soil and climate, 

 survey-maps have been constructed, while in the Report 

 now before us a beginning has been made of a scientific 

 and popular description of the forest trees of California. 

 The preparation of this catalogue has been intrusted to 

 Mr. J. G. Lemmon ; its illustration will be undertaken 

 by Mrs. Lemmon, and by photographs. For botanical 

 purposes the writings of Engelmann, Sargent, Watson, 

 Parry, and others in recent times, of Sir W. Hooker and 

 Dr. Arnott at a more remote period, will supply what is 

 needed. 



Mr. Lemmon waxes enthusiastic, as well he may, over the 

 forests of California. Pre-eminent over all forestal regions 

 of the earth are the dense and e.xtensive tree-growths cloth- 

 ing the slopes of that most diversified and wonderful of 

 mountain-ranges— the Sierra Nevada of Western America 

 — a range distinguished by the abruptness of its majestic 

 uprise from the plain, the splintered and rough-hewn 

 forms of its thousand peaks, the high elevation of their 

 pinnacles ever bearing their crowns of snow, but most of 

 all pre-eminent for its bounteous and beautiful " enrobing 

 forest, . . . the noblest in North America, perforated 

 along its raised centre-line by a thousand peaks rising 

 through the mantle into perpetual winter ; while both 

 slopes, east and west, are rent by a million valleys, 

 depressed through the robe (of forest) into the middle 

 region of changing seasons, and the fringe of the garment 

 trails out over the domain of almost perpertual summer." 

 In a similar strain Mr. Lemmon proceeds at considerable 

 length and in a style we are not accustomed to meet with 

 in " Blue-books." The Sierra forests, so far as environ- 

 ment is concerned, occupy a middle position between 

 torrid and frigid conditions. They are composed 



mainly of evergreen trees, not one of which is specifically 

 identical with the trees on the Atlantic side of the 

 Continent, though often so curiously alike that each genus 

 has its " representative species " on either side. The 

 " big trees," Sequoia gigantea, or Wellingtonia, have been 

 written about so often that most people are familiar with 

 them. " Far excelling them in loveliness " are the four 

 species of Abies -nobilis, grandis, magnifica, a.nd concolor. 

 These are all, with many others, cultivated in our parks 

 and gardens, where they thrive better as a rule than in 

 the Eastern States of America. Already they justify 

 in a measure Mr. Lemmon's ecstasies ; though it is 

 probable that their beauty will not be enhanced as they 

 grow old, for many of these trees which are pictures of 

 grace and beauty when young become " scraggy " and 

 unlovely when old. Fortunately the standard of age is 

 different in trees and men, and some generations of men 

 may pass before the trees lose their charm. Of their 

 value as timber trees in this country we need not speak 

 here ; indeed, little definite is yet known ; but, at any rate^ 

 there are well-founded hopes in the case of the Douglas 

 fir, the Nootka Sound cypress, Thuya borealis, the Thuja 

 gigatttea, and some others which seem destined to play 

 an important part in the forestry of the future. 



After some generahties Mr. Lemmon proceeds to give 

 a classification of the true pines {Piiius), of the Pacific 

 slope, a classification intended for popular purposes, and 

 therefore one in which the histological characters of the 

 leaves are passed over. The main divisions are intO' 

 smooth-coned pines and rough-coned pines, corresponding 

 to the sections Strobus and Pinaster respectively. In 

 the one the scales of the cone end in thick, prominent, 

 often spiny bosses, in the other the ends of the scale are 

 nearly flat or project but little. Then comes a sub- 

 division according to the length of the cone, surely a 

 most untrustworthy criterion ; for instance, Lambert's 

 pine, the gigantic sugar pine, bears cones varying from 

 10 to 22 inches in length according to Mr. Lemmon's 

 own showing. Further subdivisions are founded on the 

 position of the young cone near the terminal leaf-bud 

 or at some distance from it, on the length of time the 

 cones remain on the tree, the way in which the scales 

 eventually separate, and so forth. Having characterized 

 the various species of Pinus, the author proceeds 

 to give detailed information about each. This is the 

 most valuable portion of Mr. Lemmon's report for 

 European botanists. We would fain make many quota- 

 tions, but our space allows us only to mention two species. 

 The magnificent sugar-pine {Lambertiana) ,\v2i.s first made 

 known by Douglas. It sends up a magnificent shaft 

 two hundred feet high, and sometimes much more. The 

 value of this tree for " lumber " purposes is as great as its 

 stateliness is imposing, hence thousands of noble trees 

 have been shamefully destroyed. " Lawless vagabonds 

 penetrate the Sierra forests with only the equipment of 

 an axe and a long saw, and, levelling these monstrous 

 trees, they saw out a cut, examine it, and perchance 

 move on to the destruction of others, leaving to rot on 

 the ground trees that would yield to the careful lumber- 

 man twenty thousand to fifty thousand feet of clear 

 lumber, worth hundreds of dollars." Pinus Torreya?ta, 

 the lone pine, also deserves special notice here as aj 

 species of much structural interest, and as one which, itj 

 appears, is on the high road to extinction, unless that 

 process can be obviated by forest ordinances or by thel 

 care of the cultivator. On the coast of Southern California,! 

 on the bluffs at Del Mar, San Diego County, within 

 range of four miles only, and nowhere else so far as known, 

 are a few small trees, buffeted and often prostrated byj 

 ocean winds, clinging to the face of crumbling yellov 

 sandstone. On the sheltered inner side of the hills anc 

 on the spurs of the cafions, bathed with frequent sea-fog,J 

 the trees have indeed a better chance, and they accordingl} 

 there form a trunk some thirty or even fifty feet in height,! 



