132 Muhlenbergia, Volume 7 



On August 9th camp was moved to the ranch of Mr. Peter 

 Ogilvie, near I<ee post office, on the South Fork of the Hum- 

 boldt, where some two weeks were spent. Here there is a fer- 

 tile valley, given over to hay ranches, many of them containing 

 a section of land, and some more. Hay making with these 

 ranchers is not the simple operation of only a few days as with 

 the small farmer whose total acreage is often less than one hay 

 field belonging to a Nevada rancher. The cutting of the hay 

 crop extends over a period of from two to six weeks, depending 

 upon the acreage. Practically all of the hay is stacked in the 

 field and used from there as required, much of it being fed to 

 stock in -the winter time when the meadow pastures and the 

 open ranges do not supply a sufficient amount of food. 



The South Fork of the Humboldt is formed by four or five 

 streams which head high up in the range in large canyons, 

 whose heads are in basins at usual!)- about 9500 feet, nearly all 

 of them with one or more small lakes, the streams fringed with 

 clumps of low willows, or running through open grassy mead- 

 ows decked with a profusion of blossoms of every hue, while 

 above tower grim and forbidding cliffs. 



About Lee the native cottonwood, Populus angustifolia^ was 

 common, often a tree thirty or forty feet high, with a trunk a 

 foot or more in diameter. 



Numerous clumps of tall willows, many of them three or 

 four inches in diameter fringed the stream banks. Among them 

 were Salix exigua^ S. Fendleriana^ S. niacrocarpa^ and S. per- 

 rostrata. 



Crataegus j-ivularis with well formed but green fruit was 

 common in the meadow where we were camped, and several 

 trees were growing about the tent. Here it is a tree about fif- 

 teen feet high, with a trunk five or six inches in diameter, and 

 a symmetrical, well rounded crown. 



In moist places in the open meadows Iris missouriensis and 

 Thermopsis angustata were both plentiful, yielding ripe seeds 

 for our seed collection. 



