AMERICAN FOREST TREES 75 



an important place to fill in the western country's development. Its 

 greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a 

 long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can 

 be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole 

 grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is 

 enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for 

 harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the 

 same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East, 

 and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other 

 species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts. 



If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the 

 case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforce- 

 ment of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will 

 come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much 

 extension of their borders. 



JEFFREY PINE (Pimis jeffreyi) is often classed as western yellow 

 pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern 

 Oregon to Lower California, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east 

 and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a 

 mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western 

 yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level ; 

 in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply- 

 furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumber- 

 men distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under 

 several names, most of them relating to the tree's appearance, such as 

 black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine. 

 It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average 

 is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in 

 eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved 

 spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small. 

 It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests. Some 

 botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western 

 yellow pine. 



GRAY PINE (Pinus sabiniana), called also Digger pine because the Digger 

 Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a 

 living, is confined to California, and grows in a belt on the foothills surrounding 

 the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked 

 spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds. Leaves are from 

 eight to twelve inches long, hi clusters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth 

 years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It 

 lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet 

 high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is 

 of considerable importance, but is not hi the same class as western yellow and sugar 



