So 



THE FORESTER. 



April, 



monarchs of the woods in all their pro- 

 pprtions and circumstances, there is never 

 anything overgrown or monstrous-looking 

 about them. On coming in sight of them 

 for the first time, you are likely to say 

 4 Oh see what beautiful, noble-looking 

 trees are towering there among the firs 

 and pines!' their grandeur being in the 

 meantime in great part invisible, but to 

 the living eye it will be manifested sooner 

 or later, stealing slowly on the senses, like 

 the grandeur of Niagara, or the lofty 

 Yosemite domes. Their great size is hid- 

 den from the inexperienced observer as 

 long as they are seen at a distance in one 

 harmonious view. When, however, you 

 approach them and walk round them, you 

 begin to wonder at their colossal size and 

 seek a measuring-rod. These giants bulge 

 considerably at the base, but not more 

 than is required for beauty and safety; 

 and the only reason that this bulging 

 seems in some cases excessive is that onlv 

 a comparatively small section of the shaft 

 is seen at once in near views. One that 

 I measured in the King's Rivers forest 

 was 2^ feet in diameter at the ground 

 and 10 feet in diameter 200 feet above 

 the ground, showing that the taper 

 of the trunk as a whole, is charmingly 

 fine. And when you stand back far 

 enough to see the massive columns from 

 the swelling instep to the loftv summit 

 dissolving in a dome of verdure, you re- 

 joiced on the unrivaled display of com- 

 bined grandeur and beauty. About a 

 hundred feet or more of the trunk is usu- 

 ally branchless, but its massive simplicity 

 is relieved by the bark furrows, which in- 

 stead of making an irregular network, run 

 evenly parallel, like the fluting of an ar- 

 chitectural column, and to some extent by 

 tufts of slender sprays that wave lightly in 

 the winds and cast flecks of shade, seem- 

 ing to have been pinned on here and there 

 for the sake of beauty only. The young 

 trees have slender, simple branches down 

 to the ground, put on with strict regular- 

 ity, sharply aspiring at the top, horizontal 

 about half-way down, and drooping in 

 handsome curves at the base. By the 

 time the sapling is five or six hundred 

 years old this spiry, feathery, juvenile 



habit merges into the firm, rounded dome 

 form of middle age, which in turn takes 

 on the eccentric picturesqueness of old 

 age. No other tree in the Sierra forest 

 has foliage so densely massed or presents 

 outlines so firmly drawn and so steadily 

 subordinate to a special type. A knotty 

 ungovernable-looking branch five to eight 

 feet thick may be seen pushing out ab- 

 ruptly from the smooth trunk, as if sure to 

 throw the regular curves into confusion, but 

 as soon as the general outline is reached it 

 stop short and dissolves in spreading bosses 

 of law-abiding sprays, just as if every tree 

 were growing beneath some huge invis- 

 ible bell-glass, against whose sides every 

 branch was being pressed and molded, yet 

 somehow indulging in so many small de- 

 partures from the regular form that there 

 is still an appearance of freedom.. The 

 foliage of the saplings is dark bluish-green 

 in color, while the older trees ripen to a 

 warm brownish-yellow tint like Liboce- 

 drus. The bark is the rich cinnamon 

 brown, purplish in young trees and in 

 shady portions of the old, while the ground 

 is covered with brown leaves and burs 

 forming color-masses of extraordinary rich- 

 ness, not to mention the flowers and under- 

 brush that rejoice about them in their sea- 

 sons. Walk the Sequoia woods at any 

 time of the year and you will say they are 

 the most beautiful and majestic on earth. 

 Beautiful and impressive contrasts meet you 

 everywhere : the color of tree and flower, 

 rock and sky, light and shade, strength and 

 frailty, endurance and evanescence, tangles 

 of supple hazel-bushes, tree-pillar about 

 as rigid as granite domes, roses and vio- 

 lets, the smallest of their kind, blooming 

 around the feet of the giants, and rugs of 

 the chamcasbatia where the sunbeams fall. 

 Then in winter the trees themselves break 

 forth in bloom, myriads of small four-sided 

 staminate cones crowd the ends of the slen- 

 der sprays, coloring the whole tree, and 

 when ripe dusting the air and the ground 

 with golden pollen. The fertile cones are 

 bright grass-green, measuring about two 

 inches in length by one and a-half in thick- 

 ness, and are made up of about forty firm, 

 rhomboidal scales densely packed, with 

 from five to eight seeds at the base of each,. 



