FOEEST EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 597 



CALIFOENIA. 



This State, in common with the country further north, presents strik- 

 ing contrasts of abundance and destitution in regard to its timber sup- 

 plies, suggesting active and eflBcient measures for conservation on the 

 one hand, and patient and persevering efforts at restoration on the other. 

 Nothing short of a discriminating and prudent policy on the part of the 

 General and State Governments, in whatever comes within their province, 

 and a thoughtful regard to future interests on the part of private own- 

 ers of land, will save this region from the unpleasant consequences that 

 would follow the entire exhaustion of the supplies of timber now avail- 

 able for commerce. In this question the consequences affect not only 

 our own country, but also many others, who have been for years drawing 

 upon these supplies as though they had no limit. 



The worst feature of this question is, the thoughtless waste and total 

 loss that has attended the management of these timbered lands, so far 

 as owned by private persons, and the destruction that has happened in 

 the want of management where the lauds belonged to the Government. 

 This waste by improvidence, jilunder, and forest-fires, is more fully 

 noticed elsewhere in this report. 



Before noticing such details as we have been able to gather, we will 

 present the observations of scientific observers as to the general char- 

 acter of the forests of this coast, and some official statements of the lum- 

 ber production. 



L)r. Asa Gray, in speaking of the contrast in vegetation between the 

 Atlantic States and California, separated as they are by wide treeless 

 plains and lofty mountains, says :^ 



California has no Magnolia nor tulip-trees, nor star-anise tree; no so-called paupaw 

 (Asimina); no barberry of the common single-leaved sort; no Podophyllum or other 

 of the peculiar associated genera; no Nelumbo nor white water-lily; no prickly ash 

 nor sumach; no loblolly-bay nor stuartia; no bass wood nor linden-trees; neither locust, 

 honey-locust, coSee-trecs (Gymnocladus), nor yello'w-wood {Cladrastr is); nothing an- 

 swering to Hydrangea or witch-hazel, to gum-trees {Nyssa and Liquidamhar), Vibur- 

 num or Diervilla ; it has few asters and golden-rods; no Lobelias, huckleberries, and 

 hardly any blueberries; no Epigaja, charm of our earliest spring, tempering an icy 

 April wind with a delicious wild fragrance; no Kalmia, nor Clethra, nor holly, nor 

 persimmon; no Catalpa-tree nor trumpet-creeper {Tecoma); nothing answering to 

 Sassafras, nor to Benzoin tree, nor to hickory ; neither mulberry nor elm ; no boech, 

 true chestnut, hornbeam, nor ironwood, nor a proper birch-tree ; and the enumeration 

 might be continued very much further by naming herbaceous jilauts and others famil- 

 iar only to botanists. 



In their place California is filled with plants of other types — trees, shrubs, and herbs, 

 of which I will only remark that they are, with one or two exceptions, as different 

 from the plants of the eastern Asiatic region as they are frt-m those of Atlantic North 

 America. Their near relatives, when they have any in other lauds^ are mostly south- 

 ward on the Mexican lalateau, or many as far South as Chili. 



Ohservations of Prof. J. S. Ifeicherry upon ilie forests of California and 



Oregon. 



Professor Newberry estimates the number of species of forest-trees 

 growing north of San Francisco and south of the Columbia as not ex- 

 ceeding fifty, distributed among the following genera: Pinus, 8; Abies, 

 5 ; Picea, 3 ; Sequoia, 2 ; Ciqyressus, 2 ; Thuja, 1 ; lAbocedrus, 1 ; Larix, 

 1 ; Taxus, 1 ; Torreya, 1 ; Quercus, 5 ; Popidus, 3 ; Salix, 5 ; Fraxinus, 

 2; Acer, 2; Alnus, 1; Cornus, 1; Platanns, 1', Castanea, 1; ^sculus, 

 1 ; ArhuUis, 1 ; Oreodaphne, 1. The conifers largely exceed the dicoty- 



1 Address before the .-Int. Asso. for Advancement cf Science, Dubuque meeting, 1872. p. 9. 

 ^Pacific Railroad Survey, vol. vi, Botany, p. 11. 



