37 6 Recreations of a Sportsman 



are appreciated and that some men and women 

 are taking to them yearly more and more. 

 There are many idiocies perpetuated under the 

 name " getting back to nature," but roaming the 

 Sierra Nevada, or any forest, is not one; it is a 

 sane delight and relief, as Stewart Edward White 

 has shown us, for nearly all the burdens man is 

 heir to, and where is there a more delightful 

 region than this? 



Beginning with Tahoe and reaching south to 

 the Mojave Desert is the reserve of the Sierra, 

 over four million acres of a forest that has not 

 its equal in any land, a forest over two hundred 

 miles long. You can walk beyond the shores 

 of Tahoe and find the great sequoias, the noblest 

 of all trees, something to think of on a fishing 

 day. In these Sierras you make acquaintance 

 with the sugar pine, the yellow pine, and others, 

 eight in all. You may rest your eyes on the 

 Douglas spruce, the beautiful silver fir, the Pat- 

 ton hemlock, and as you climb down the range, 

 or up, there is a constant variety of evergreens, 

 oaks, alders, poplars, maples, and dogwoods with 

 their splendid blossoms. What is called the 

 chaparral is a joy of itself. The strange man- 

 zanita, with its contorted limbs steeped in the 

 lews of port or burgundy, one might think; 

 masses of wild rose indicating the canon bot- 

 tom, the cherry, chestnut, rhododendron, and 

 many more you hail and greet as you descend or 



