408 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A LAKE BED MEADOW. 



THIS IS A TYPICAL MEADOW OF THE HIGHER LEVELS. HERE WAS ONCE A SHALLOW LAKE. THE GROUND IS GRASS 



GROWN AND STREWN WITH FLOWERS. 



Semite Park there is scarcely a stream 

 which near its source does not wander 

 through a score or more of these little 

 mountain gems emeralds strung upon 

 a thread of silver. And wherever there 

 is a meadow there is a place to camp, 

 with water and rich pickings for the 

 horses. Late in the season, after months 

 of cloudless skies, after the snow fields 

 have shrunken to their smallest size and 

 the forest stands parched and tinder 

 dry, the little meadows still are green 

 and cool and decked with flowers, and 

 from their lower ends the precious 

 trickle of water still flows away to 

 keep the shrunken brooklets running, 

 and the river farther down. 



Left to itself, this lake-bed meadow 

 in time grows dry. The peat bog holds 

 back more silt each year till a spongy 

 soil is formed. For a period the grass 

 and flowers flourish, as the ground 

 grows slowly drier and firmer, but in 

 the end the trees push in and claim the 



land, and the meadow exists no more. 

 Even the lodgepole pine demands a cer- 

 tain degree of dryness before it will 

 grow, but as it gains a foothold round 

 the edge of such a meadow its rootlets 

 carry the water up out of the spongy 

 soil and into the air currents. Its leaves 

 aggregate a surface many times that of 

 the meadow under it, and from this 

 increased surface evaporation proceeds 

 rapidly. Little by little, the tree as it 

 grows apace pulls more and more of 

 the water from the meadow reservoir, 

 throws it higher and higher into the 

 air where the scorching breezes blow, 

 and from its tremendous leaf surface 

 the water is quickly lost. About the 

 feet of the first tree a host of seedlings 

 springs and like a skirmish line advance 

 into the meadow. A series of dry years 

 may make a large zone about the edge 

 of such a meadow habitable for the 

 pines and in they crowd wherever a 

 seed can sprout. Once in, they hold 



