152 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[October, 



named, paying the prices named for each of 

 the five, will make on each, provided no in- 

 terest is reckoned on the price paid for the 

 cow, or on the butter made from her, during 

 ten years. 



If the cow cost $30, the keeping per annum 

 $25, and the butter sells for 25 cts. a pound, 

 the profits on the cows will be as follows, viz: 

 Pay'e $30.00 for 200 lb. cow, will get in 10 yrs. ?170.00 



..39 " .500 ' 



10 



:j5.03 



363.11 



" 671.61 " fiOO " " " " " 10 " 428.39 



respectively. Table A, columns 1, 3, 5 ar d (3, 

 on first prices paid for cows. — Mass. Plough- 

 man. 



ON THE TIMBER LINE OF HIGH 

 MOUNTAINS.* 



On the tops of most high mountains we find 

 a total absence of ligneous plants. The highest 

 alpine vegetation consists for the most part of 

 acaulescent perennials. Lower down we may 

 find some woody species, and often we come 

 to dwarfed forms of trees of species which, 

 still lower down, form forests of considerable 

 height, and which as timber trees make what 

 is known to mountain travelers as the " Tim- 

 ber Line. ' ' Thus in the mountains of Colorado 

 the forests commence at about 7,000 feet about 

 the sea level, and continue up to about 11,- 

 000 feet, where they suddenly cease, and form 

 at that elevation what is there known as the 

 "Timber Line." On Gray's Peak he found 

 Fimis aristata, Finns flexilis, Abies concolor 

 and Abies Engchnanni, with some willows 

 forming the timber line. The Coniferous trees 

 were probably 30 or 40 feet high, and it was 

 interesting to note that this tall timber as 

 suddenly ceased, as if a wood had been cut 

 half away by a woodman's axe. But at once 

 commencing where the tall timber ceased, the 

 same species exist as dwarf stunted shrubs, 

 seldom exceeding three or four feet in height, 

 and often but a foot, though trailing widely 

 over the ground. In this stunted condition 

 the species -would often extend some fifteen 

 hundred feet higher up, or half way from the 

 recognized timber line to the top of the moun- 

 tain. Other observers have noted that the 

 average of 11,000 feet marks the entire timber 

 line of the Eocky Mountain range. 



So far as he knew, this pecular timber line 

 has been referred wholly to cUmatie condi- 

 tions, of which temperature and moisture have 

 been regarded as the chief elements in produc- 

 ing the results. That admirable botanist and 

 energetic collector. Dr. C. C. Parry, in a 

 paper on the Rocky Mountain alpine region, 

 published in the "Proceedings of the Ameri- 

 can Asseciation for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence " for 1869, p. 249, remarks that the most 

 satisfactory explanation is that the so-called 

 timber line marks the extreme point of mini- 

 mum temperature below which no exposed 

 phenogamous plant can exist. All that sur- 

 vives above this point does so by submitting 

 to a winter burial of snow, beneath which 

 protecting cover it is enabled to maintain its 

 torpid existence. 



The great objection which this purely mete- 

 orological view presented to Mr. Meehan's 

 mind was that the dwarfed and gnarled coni- 

 ferse extending so many hundred feet up the 

 mountain sides, never produced seed, and we 



•From the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, by Professor Meehan. 



are reduced to the alternative of believing 

 either that the seeds have been carried up the 

 mountain sides in enormous quantities and to 

 enormous distances from the fruitive trees be- 

 low, by winds, or else that there were seed- 

 bearing progenitors of these scrubby pines, 

 beneath the tall protecting branches of which 

 they had their earliest stages of growth. He 

 was satisfied from subsequent observations in 

 the mountains of North Carolina, and in the 

 White Mountains of New Hampshire, that 

 this last view is the correct one— that large 

 timber trees at no very remote period extend- 

 ed much further up the mountain sides than 

 they do now, and that they have since disap- 

 peared for reasons presently to be stated, 

 leaving only the younger trees to struggle on 

 as best they may. 



Roan Mountain in North Carolina is about 

 6,300 feet above the level of the sea. Timber 

 extends to its summit on some parts of it, 

 while in other parts it is destitute of timber 

 for many hundreds of feet down its sides. The 

 species on the summit is Abies Frazen and 

 Abies nigra. Oak and other trees come occa- 

 sionally to near the top, and at about 6,000 

 feet he measured a black oak, Quercus tinc- 

 toria, that was five feet in circumference at 

 three feet from the ground, and was perhaps 

 40 feet high. The places destitute of trees 

 were the steep declivities, — while those on 

 which the trees were growing were of a more 

 level character. Fui'ther down the mountain 

 sides the steep inclines would be clothed with 

 forest growth, as well as those of a more 

 gradual ascent. It is of the summit only 

 that the differences in inclination pre- 

 sented different forest aspects. But in the 

 spaces clear of " Balsam," as the Abies 

 Irazeri is popularly known, an occasional one 

 of good size would be seen. In the close 

 Balsam woods, both on the summit and lower 

 down the mountain sides, crops of young 

 plants would be found under the mature 

 trees, but what was very remarkable, there 

 had evidently been no young trees started till 

 the parents were near maturity. A large 

 area with trees 30 or 40 feet high would have 

 an undergrowth of young ones a foot or so 

 high, while other areas of younger trees would 

 have innumerable small seedlings growing 

 among the damp moss beneath them, and it 

 wjs further interesting to note that in most 

 cases the crops of young plants in each area 

 were about the same age in each case, as if 

 the seeds in the several locations had all start- 

 ed to grow together in some one particular 

 year, and probably at no other time. On the 

 naked places, where few or no trees were now 

 found, the surface would be closely covered 

 by a matted growth of grass almost peculiar 

 to that region, Danthonia compressa, but a 

 close examinatiot of the surface showed occa- 

 sional tracts of deep vegetable mould which 

 had been formed by ages of decaying Hypmini 

 or sphagnum moss, and the evident remains 

 of roots, just as we now find under the Balsam 

 trees, and there is no doubt from these facts 

 that these steep upper declivities were once 

 clothed with trees and mosses, to which the 

 grass previously named succeeded. 



With these facts in mind, he examined the 

 arboreal features of the White Mountains in 

 New Hampshire. On Mount Washington, 

 which is a little over 6,000 feet, the timber 



runs up to about 4,000 feet; while Mount 

 Webster, a mountain forming the southern 

 peak of the same, chain, and about 4,000 feet 

 high, has little timber above 3,000 feet. 

 Clearly, climatic reasons will not account for 

 these peculiarities. On Mount Washington 

 there is much of the same character as distin- 

 guishes the forests of the Rocdy Mountains. 

 As already noted, the timber line becomes 

 marked at about 4,000 feet. For at least an- 

 other thousand feet we meet with scrubby 

 bushes of Abies bahamea, Abies nigra, and 

 Abies alba, with some Betula papyracea. Be- 

 yond this, and almost to the summit, an oc- 

 casional specimen of one or another of the 

 coniferse may be seen. As noted in regard to 

 the Colorado scrubby growth, none of these 

 had ever produced seed; nor was it at all 

 probable, from the careful survey of the loca- 

 tions, that many of the areas could have been 

 seeded by the winds, however strong, bring- 

 ing the seeds up these mountain heights. 

 Moreover, there were many cases where there 

 were intermediate areas clear of all scrubby 

 spruce plants,and where seeds could be brought 

 by winds in these modern times much easier 

 than to the heights above. Besides this, it 

 was evident that.;OQany of these dwarfed speci- 

 mens were of immense age. Some that he ex- 

 amined were certainly fifty years old, though 

 the stems at ihe ground were no thicker than 

 his wrist, and, trailing on the ground, occu- 

 pied but 16 or 20 square feet of space. There 

 seemed to be but little doubt that at some 

 time in the past Mount Washington had for- 

 ests of conifer® at much higher elevations 

 than at present, if not perhaps clean up to the 

 summit; that these scrubby plants now there 

 were seedlings that had sprung up under the 

 elder ones, and that in time the older ones 

 were destroyed, leaving the small ones be- 

 neath alone to their fate. 



An examination of different parts of Mount 

 Washington shows not only that this is the 

 true explanation of the absence of good timber 

 beyond what is known as the timber line, but 

 that thei same law is in progress to-day as in 

 centuries past. Illustrations of this are numer- 

 ous. There is now a railroad running straight 

 up the mountain side from the base to the 

 summit. Near the timber line, a cut had to be 

 made trough an area covered by mature Bal- 

 sam Firs. This cut was about 8 to 10 feet 

 deep. Under the trees moss and dead roots 

 and old fir leaves had made an earthy strata of 

 a foot, or in places more in depth. The moss was 

 still green from the rains, melting snows and 

 fogs of this elevated region, and sustaining 

 the various kinds of low vegetation common 

 to these alpine heights. Young firs were 

 springing up in great abundance. But all the 

 larger trees were dead, though here and there 

 might be seen a branch with a few lingering 

 green leaves. Thig mass of dead standing tim- 

 ber occupies several acres. The reason for 

 their death was evident. The railroad cut 

 showed that tlie forest stood on a mass of 

 larec but loose gneiss rocks, through which 

 the waters frorn the two thousand feet of loose 

 rock above rushed as soou as the railroad cut 

 was made, carrying with it all the earthy mat- 

 ter on which the larger trees subsisted, but 

 leaving the tough turfy matter at. the surface, 

 on which smaller trees of the same sort may 

 live for many years, though the larger ones 



