54 



PRACTICAL ARBORICULTURE 



cured a footing. Little by little, it spread its branches upward and pushed its 

 rootlets deeper into the granite mass. Into this crevice water lodged, frost 

 helped the tree to open wider the fissures and push deeper its roots, until now 

 it has become a tree three feet in diameter and one hundred and twenty-five 

 feet high. 



From the stage road it seems a tiny shrub, as it stands alone against this 

 massive granite vjp 1 !, and it is pointed out to the tourist as the tree which 

 grows without soil. 



As I looked upon this sentinel tree I was persuaded that it possessed some 

 power beyond the ken of man. We have not yet learned all the laws of 



MERCED RIVER, YOSEMITE VALLEY. 



nature. As we cannot explain how lightning is drawn, unseen, unheard, along 

 the wire, carrying with it the human voice, although our friend who speaks is 

 a thousand miles away, neither can we tell how the tree attracts the rains, 

 gathering the moisture necessary for its existence, and makes its growth seven 

 hundred feet away from the nearest soil, high up on the face of this massive 

 granite rock. 



On the return trip, again spending a night at Wawona. I visited the Mari- 

 posa grove of sequoias one of which, the Grizzly Giant, forms our frontis- 



