The Junipers 



of chopping down a tree lo feet in diameter would discourage the 

 most ardent searcher after treasures of fact hid in a tree trunk. A 

 chip a foot deep chopped out of a medium-sized tree — 6 feet in 

 diameter — showed an average of fifty-seven years of growth 

 required to make an inch of wood. On soil deposited in the high 

 valleys by glacial rivers these junipers grow about as fast as oaks. 

 They are the well-fed, commonplace members of the family, 

 growing tall and straight under favouring skies. 



I cannot forbear a quotation from John Muir's "Forests of 

 the Yosemite Park," for he knows these mountain trees person- 

 ally, and has interpreted them to the world as no other man 

 has done: 



"The sturdy storm-enduring red cedar {Junipenis occi- 

 dentalis) delights to dwell on the tops of granite domes and ridges 

 and glacier pavements of the upper pine belt, at an elevation of 

 7,000 to 10,000 feet, where it can get plenty of sunshine and 

 snow and elbow room, without encountering quick-growing, 

 overshadowing rivals. They never make anything like a forest, 

 seldom come together even in groves, but stand out separate 

 and independent in the wind, clinging by slight joints to the 

 rock, living chiefly on snow and thin air, and maintaining tough 

 health on this diet for 2,000 years or more, every feature and 

 gesture expressing steadfast, dogged endurance. . . . Many 

 are mere stumps as broad as high, broken by avalanches and 

 lightning, picturesquely tufted with dense grey scale-like foliage, 

 and giving no hint of dying. . . . Barring accidents, for all I 

 can see, they would live forever. When killed, they waste out of 

 existence about as slowly as granite. Even when overthrown 

 by avalanches, after standing so long, they refuse to lie at rest, 

 leaning stubbornly on their big elbows as if anxious to rise, and 

 while a single root holds to the rocks, putting forth fresh leaves 

 with a grim never-say-die and never-lie-down expression." 



112 



