102 



Garden and Forest. 



Number "420. 



Occasionally the logs are traced, but the settlement for 

 them is made in accordance with the recommendation 

 of the forester on the stumpage value and for a quantity 

 agreed upon, often without regard to the facts in the case, 

 and seldom, if in any single instance, has the adjustment 

 for timber cut on state lands been based on a value above 

 the market rate for like timber standing. The trespasser, 

 then, has one chance of profit by cutting his timber with- 

 out any cost. If his trespass is reported he has another 

 chance of profit from an understatement of the quantity of 

 timber charged as taken, and he has still another chance by 

 settling with the state at market rate, or lower still for 

 stumpage. 



It is very plain that unless some radical change is made 

 in the law and in public sentiment or in both there will 

 soon be no timber left on the state lands, at least on the small 

 and isolated parcels of such lands. It is even contended 

 by some that the forests are so vast, the number of persons 

 united by an interest in the cutting of timber so great, and 

 the state police force so small that it is impossible to pre- 

 vent timber thieving. It is doubtless true, as is claimed by 

 the Forest Commission, that the state lands in the main 

 forest, scattered like the black squares over a checker- 

 board, and interspersed with private holdings, are hard to 

 patrol with the small number of foresters at command, and 

 it would be of great advantage to the state to buy up these 

 scattered parcels within the reservation, to provide more pro- 

 tectors and place them where there is the greatest liability 

 to depredation. Again, as this report insists, these forest- 

 ers should be residents of the special locality assigned 

 to their care, and they should devote their entire time to 

 duties as forest guardians and travel over their district at 

 least once a month. It should be their duty to follow up 

 every clue and prosecute for recovery and punishment to 

 the full penalty of the law, and they should be charged with 

 the duty of enforcing all laws relating to the forest preserve. 

 No one can doubt that these trespasses on state lands could 

 then be materially lessened, if not altogether stopped. 

 Property-owners and contractors would soon learn to know 

 where their own boundaries were if they were sure of 

 punishment when they transgressed them. That it is pos- 

 sible to protect the timber on state lands is evident from 

 the fact that private owners are rarely troubled by timber 

 thieves, because it is known that the full penalty of the law 

 and the full value of the timber cut or taken will be exacted. 

 A like enforcement of the rights of the state and of the 

 penalty for every violation would operate in the same way 

 to stop trespassers on state lands. There is a fine of $25.00 

 for every tree unlawfully cut, but this extreme amount is 

 never exacted, and this report rightly insists that, in addi- 

 tion to a money penalty, every one who cuts or aids in 

 cutting or transporting state timber should be held guilty 

 of a misdemeanor. The penal code provides for malicious 

 injury and destruction of timber on state lands, and a per- 

 son who willfully cuts down, destroys or injures any timber 

 standing or lying on lands of the people of the state is pun- 

 ishable by imprisonment and fine, or both. But this does 

 not reach depredations on timber within the forest reserve, 

 nor does it prevent the violation of the constitutional prohi- 

 bition for the sale and removal of timber on the reserve. It 

 is, therefore, recommended that depredations on the forest 

 reserve — that is, the felling and removal, or the causing to 

 be felled or removed, of any timber on the state lands, or of 

 receiving with knowledge timber taken from the state 

 land without the authority of law — be made a misdemeanor 

 in addition to the fine. 



Beyond question, it should be made a criminal offense to 

 steal timber from the state, but without a compelling pub- 

 he opinion behind it such an act would never be enforced. 

 What is needed more than law is an aroused public con- 

 science. A man is treated like a thief by his neighbors if 

 he steals their timber, but so long as they consider him an 

 innocent trespasser at the worst if he chances to be detected 

 in appropriating the timber of the state, the public forests 

 will be a public prey. 



Notes of Mexican Travel. — XI. 



CUERNAVACA. 



MY eleventh Mexican journey was limited to the last 

 three months of 1895. I found the rainy season 

 drawing to a close when I reached my field at the end of 

 September. Everywhere over south Mexico evidence of 

 abundant rains was given by a better-developed vegetation 

 than I had ever before seen. Not a few scarce plants 

 which had hitherto eluded my endeavor to secure speci- 

 mens in sufficient number for my large distribution, now 

 easily yielded me ample material. Jn quest of these I 

 tramped once more several familiar fields. I saw the de- 

 lightful Jalisco region smiling with plenty, as always ; its 

 people happy and enterprising. Greatly increased traffic 

 over the railroad attested their awakening activity — their 

 really getting into line with the world's progress. A better 

 illustration could scarcely be found of the civilizing and 

 developing power of the railroad, and the Mexican Central, 

 encouraged by such results, is advancing its line farther 

 into this fertile state. 



Again I visited for a few weeks the remote state of 

 Oaxaca, traveling the dry and heated canons of the lowland 

 district of Cuicatlan as well as the elevated and heavily 

 forested mountains to the north of its capital. .My delight- 

 ful occupation during the sunny days of the tropic autumn 

 was the gathering of new or rare species located the pre- 

 vious year, as well as those which now surprised me by a 

 seeming first appearance. Of nearly everything there was 

 in this season a profusion. A chief object in climbing 

 again the Sierra de San Felipe above the city of Oaxaca 

 was to secure a full complement of specimens of Pinus 

 Teocote, found there by Liebmann fifty years ago. The 

 species occupies, almost to the exclusion of other trees, 

 certain ridges on the flanks of the mountain at an elevation 

 of about 9,000 feet over sea-level, the soil of which is a red- 

 dish clay — dry, hard and poor. In such conditions it is a 

 slender tree of inferior, or, at best, but medium size, with 

 hard and resinous wood of reddish color. P. Montezuma?, 

 at the same elevation and below, mingles with the Oaks in 

 more fertile and moister soil, while above, and especially 

 on the summit ridges, it sometimes forms solid forests, the 

 best-developed individuals of which (those standing in 

 summit valleys) are three to four feet in diameter. 



Several weeks of my brief season, while the course of 

 vegetation was at its best, but swiftly passing, were de- 

 voted to work in a charming field which was to me a fresh 

 one. Such was the country surrounding the city of Cuer- 

 navaca, which lies beyond the mountain-wall that forms 

 the southern rim of the Valley of Mexico. Colonel Hanys- 

 son, who, with irresistible energy, is opening waterways 

 and steelways over the Mexican Republic, had carried his 

 Mexico, Cuernavaca & Pacific Railroad almost to Cuerna- 

 vaca, some forty miles south from the metropolis, making 

 the dreaded diligence ride over frightful lava-beds and over 

 mountain heights a thing of the past. Finding now so 

 easy of access a region whose praises had long been suno- 

 to me, the temptation to reconnoitre its vegetation, before 

 traveling far away, was not to be resisted. The ride by 

 train revealed magnificent scenery — the grandest seen in 

 Mexico ; and from my three days' trip I returned with so 

 large a load of plants that I moved over to Cuernavaca and 

 settled down to work there. Other regions might wait. 



The Cuernavaca train, issuing northward from the Buena 

 Vista Station, in Mexico City, first swings around to the 

 west over salt meadows, then turns southward just back of 

 the heights of Chapultepec, crowned with national build- 

 ings, to pass over Scott's battle-field of Molino del Rey, 

 through Tacubaya and other suburban towns, most inter- 

 esting with their magnificent villas, surrounded by parks 

 and gardens, and over dry glades bristling with plantations 

 of Maguey. About ten miles out the foot of the Sierra 

 de Ajusco is reached. Here, after passing through a scat- 

 tered forest of Pinus leiophylla, a symmetrical tree of 

 medium size, with the slenderest leaves and densest among 



