PREFACE 



Valley, and on inimitably into the Mojave 

 Desert, You may come into the borders 

 of it from the south by a stage journey that 

 has the effect of involving a great lapse of 

 time, or from the north by rail, dropping 

 out of the overland route at Reno. The 

 best of all ways is over the Sierra passes 

 by pack and trail, seeing and believing. 

 But the real heart and core of the country 

 are not to be come at in a month's vacation. 

 One must summer and winter with the land 

 and wait its occasions. Pine woods that 

 take two and three seasons to the ripening 

 of cones, roots that lie by in the sand seven 

 years awaiting a growing rain, firs that 

 grow fifty years before flowering, — these 

 do not scrape acquaintance. But if ever 

 you come beyond the borders as far as the 



