24.S 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION. 



June,, 



able then, but after repeated fires over 

 the length and breadth of the moun- 

 tains, the conditions are not so favor- 

 able for tree growth. 



Nature in her wisdom has seemed to 

 provide for such an emergency. Here 

 and there, from San Bernardino to 

 Shasta, we find growing on fire-swept 

 slopes that vigorous and invincible tree, 

 the Pinics tuberculata. Not many trav- 

 elers ever see it, and of those that do 



Si 



wm\ 1 



SMALI^ TREE SHOWING MANNER OF GROWTH 

 OF THE CONES. 



but few would notice it except for its 

 strange appearance which its life store 

 of cones give it. The tree is usually 

 small, early bearing, found on sunn}^ 

 slopes of the Cascade Range to the 

 northern Sierra and southward (rarely 

 on the coast ranges) to the San Ber- 

 nardino Mountains. Its cones grow in 

 circles, strongly declined, narrow and 

 pointed. They are three to eight inches 

 long, and remain on the trees unopened 



for an indefinite number of years. The 

 outer scales have conical, quadrangular 

 tubercles, terminated by a very short, 

 triangular, firm prickle. The leaves- 

 grow three in a sheath, three to seven 

 inches long. It is sometimes called. 

 Knob Cone or Hickory Pine. A pecu- 

 liarity of this tree is the tapering char- 

 acter of its cones at the base, whereby 

 they oppose so little resistance to the 

 growing trunk that the annual layers, 

 instead of crowding off the cones (as in- 

 most other species), often envelop them 

 completely. They are sometimes found 

 in large trunks still unopened and the- 

 .seed good. 



The cones are borne in whirls first 

 around the main axis of the tree only. 

 As the tree grows and branches freely, 

 which it will do where not crowded, 

 then cones are borne about the limbs. 

 I have counted as high as 500 cones on 

 a tree 50 years old, each cone contain- 

 ing 124 fertile seed, which are small, 

 there being 20,000 to the pound. The- 

 seed have a wing one inch long and one- 

 fourth inch wide. When a fire sweeps 

 through a grove, if severe, it kills the 

 tree. The heat melts the resin with 

 which the cone is sealed, and the second 

 or third day after the fire the winged 

 seeds take flight and plant a far greater 

 area than existed before. Thus after 

 each fire the forest becomes dense, 

 crowding together for protection, until 

 at last they defy the fire, for where they 

 grow so closely together as to occupy all 

 the ground, they will resist fire. Thi.s- 

 persistence of cone, coupled also with 

 the firm coherence of their scales for an 

 indefinite length of time, is an important 

 fact, for it insures better propagation, 

 if not the very existence of the species. 

 It is found that the seeds in these long- 

 closed cones are always in good condi- 

 tion , however old the cones. They seem 

 to declare not only that this species of 

 tree shall be its own survivor, but also 

 that it may extend its dominion over 

 other territory which has been cleared 

 of trees. 



So we may expect that through the 

 improvident or wanton conduct of man, 

 while it destroys by fire the noble Sugar 

 and Yellow Pines of our vast forests, 

 this cunning little provident tree, fight- 



