250 AMERICAN FOREST TREES 



lighter. Except as fuel, the uses found for valley oak hardly come up to what might 

 be expected of a tree so large. It is not difficult, or at least was not difficult once, to 

 cut logs sixteen feet long and from three to five in diameter. Such logs ought to 

 make good lumber. The medullary rays indicate that the wood can be quarter- 

 sawed to advantage; yet there is no account that any serious attempt was ever made 

 to convert the valley oak into lumber. The wood has some objectionable properties, 

 but it has escaped the sawmill chiefly because hardwood mills have never been numer- 

 ous in California, and they have been especially few in" the regions where the best 

 valley oaks grow. The tree has been a great source of fuel. It usually divides 

 twenty or thirty feet from the ground into large, wide-spreading branches, tempting 

 to the woodchopper. In central California, twenty or thirty years ago, it was not 

 unusual to haul this cordwood twenty-five miles to market. Stockmen employed 

 posts and rails split from valley oak to enclose corrals and pens on the open plains for 

 holding cattle, sheep, and horses. The acorns are edible, and were formerly an 

 article of food for Indians who gathered them in considerable quantities in the fall 

 and stored them for winter in large baskets which were secured high in the forks of 

 trees to be out of reach of all ordinary marauders. The baskets were made rain proof 

 by roofing and wrapping them with grass. When the time came for eating the 

 acorns, they were prepared for use by hulling them and then pounding them into 

 meal in stone mortars. The hulling was done with the teeth, and was the work of 

 squaws. The custom of eating the acorns has largely ceased with the passing of the 

 wild Indians from their former camping places; but the stone mortars by hundreds 

 remain in the vicinity of former stands of valley oak. 



This splendid tree is highly ornamental, but it has not been planted, and per- 

 haps it will not become popular. Nature seems to have confined it to a certain climate, 

 and it is not known that it will thrive outside of it. It will certainly disappear from 

 many of the valleys where the largest trees once grew. The land is being taken for 

 fields and vineyards, and the oaks are removed. Some will remain in canyons and 

 rough places where the land is not wanted, and one of the finest species of the United 

 States will cease to pass entirely from earth. The largest of these oaks have a spread 

 of branches covering more than one-third of an acre. 





