192 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 429. 



2,689,000 rupees; (4) 3,848,000 rupees; (5) 6,186,000 

 rupees; the cash surplus for the year 1891-2 being- about 

 seven and a half million rupees, with a tendency to grow, 

 in the face of constantly increased expenditures for fire 

 protection, constitution of reserves, amelioration of forest 

 estates, surveys, working-plans, road-building and the like. 

 In addition to this annually increasing direct income, the 

 Government forests have yielded immense quantities of 

 products to right-holders and other privileged persons. 

 The annual value of this outside yield represents, at least, 

 as much as the entire amount spent on the whole forest 

 establishment. Besides this, the value of a well-ordered 

 forest area to the country which lies below it can never be 

 estimated. It is an interesting fact, however, that in one 

 district in the Punjab, lying at the foot of a small mountain 

 range, comprised of friable sandstone, the Government 

 suffered an annual loss from land revenues alone amount- 

 ing to 90,000 rupees a year, owing to the devastation of 

 the fields which followed the destruction of the forests over 

 a comparatively small mountain area. Losses like this are 

 reduced every year since forest destruction has been ar- 

 rested. Besides this, the forest improves steadily and the 

 increase of its capital value is enormous, although it can 

 be hardly expressed in figures. The sum of the matter is 

 that, although in India ten million rupees are spent every 

 year in administering the state forests, a liberal and grow- 

 ing surplus is realized from the annual growth of the 

 produce, and besides this, large amounts are harvested by 

 right-holders, the agricultural and climatic conditions of 

 the country are substantially benefited, while the forest is 

 not infringed upon either in area or immature stock, but is 

 steadily growing in productive capacity. 



We are certainly justified in taking heart and hope at 

 what has been accomplished in India during thirty years, 

 for there is no reason to doubt that the same thing can be 

 done in America, where the Government still holds pos- 

 session of large timber areas. President Gibbs, of the 

 National Academy of Science, in his reply to the request of 

 the Hon. Hoke Smith, Secretary of the Interior, who had 

 asked that body to undertake an investigation of the sub- 

 ject of forestry in this country, has stated the points to be 

 considered by the Commission as follows : 



(1) The question of the ultimate ownership of the forests now 

 belonging to the Government — that is, what portions of the 

 forest on the public domain shall be allowed to pass either in 

 part or entirely from Government control into private hands ? 



(2) How shall the Government forests be administered so that 

 the inhabitants of the adjacent regions may draw their neces- 

 sary forest supplies from them without affecting their per- 

 manency ? 



(3) What provision is possible and necessary to secure for 

 the Government a continuous, intelligent and honest manage- 

 ment of the forests of the public domain, including those 

 in the reservations already made or which may be made in the 

 future ? 



Most of these questions have received an actual and prac- 

 tical answer in the management of the Indian forests. It 

 is admitted that the social conditions of the two countries 

 are entirely different ; but so are the climatic conditions of 

 India and Europe, and yet Sir Dietrich Brandis and his 

 successors have proved that the laws of forest growth are 

 the same the world over, so that forests in India can be 

 made to grow in productiveness and in value by adopting 

 the same principles upon which the successful forestry of 

 Europe has been founded. In the same way the broad 

 principles of law upon which this forest policy has been 

 built do not differ in different lands. Here, too, there must 

 be a trained corps of foresters. Here, too, the Govern- 

 ment, the only permanent possessor of the soil, must 

 manage its own forests if there is to be any stable policy. 

 Here, too, there must be an adjustment between local 

 needs and the rights of the commonwealth. If once 

 public opinion is educated up to adopting and enforcing 

 such legislation as may be recommended by experts of 

 recognized ability, we shall soon have legislation looking 

 toward the selection of suitable tracts for conservative 



forest treatment. If the Government will hold, protect and 

 manage these national forests, disposing only of their annual 

 increase, the time is not far distant when there will be a 

 paying demand for these products, and when private 

 forest owners will realize that it is to their interest to follow 

 the example of the Government and place their forest 

 property under similar control. 



The Flora of the California Coast Range. — I. 



THE Coast Range is the general name for the great 

 mountain system which stretches along the coast 

 from southern California to Puget Sound. It is not a con- 

 tinuous range, but a broken mass of parallel ridges from 

 forty to seventy miles wide, with many other chains 

 transverse to the general trend of the range, and enclosing 

 numerous valleys, large and small, of widely different alti- 

 tudes. Great streams rising in the Sierra cut through it here 

 and there, while other streams rising in the range itself pour 

 directly into the Pacific at various angles, and through the 

 depressions where they flow fogs and wind pour in to 

 modify greatly the local climates. At some points broad 

 plains or low rolling hills lie next to the coast, and at others 

 high mountains along the ocean shut out the wind and fog 

 from the country behind them. San Francisco Bay exer- 

 cises a marked influence on the climate of a large area, and 

 all these factors tend to produce diversity of temperature 

 and moisture in an apparently capricious way in places 

 near together ; in fact, no two places have the same cli- 

 mate and rainfall. In the Sierra Nevada the frostless belt 

 lies at a certain altitude ; in the Coast Range there is no 

 warm belt, but isolated warm spots which depend on alti- 

 tude, prevailing wind, fog and exposure. The result is that 

 the climates here can only be ascertained by experience. 



The rainfall is even more capricious than the tempera- 

 ture. In every rain there is a considerable difference in 

 the precipitation between Ukiah and the Insane Asylum, 

 three miles away across an open valley, being invariably 

 less at the latter place. Little Lake, twenty miles from here, 

 has a greater rainfall. Mendocino City, on the coast, has 

 an annual rainfall of more than fifty inches, while seventy 

 miles away, Colusa County, in the Sacramento Valley, has 

 eight inches, and at points in Shasta County, at the head of 

 the Sacramento Valley, the rainfall has been as great as 

 120 inches. The geological formation of the ranges and 

 the character of soils constantly vary, and in the rougher 

 sections they vary widely at very short intervals. Under 

 such conditions the flora of the Coast Range cannot be 

 other than interesting, and it is hardly probable that there 

 is a more captivating field for the botanist in the world. 

 Plants are much localized, and frequently found there out 

 of their usual range. To the enthusiast in natural science 

 the study of these endless variations and their causes is a 

 source of constant pleasure. 



Nowhere in the range is there greater variety than in 

 the area comprised within Mendocino and Lake counties. 

 Here we have a narrow table, or hill-slope, next the ocean 

 originally covered with Pinus muricata, sand dunes and 

 salt lagoons. A few miles back high table-lands lie 

 between the deep-cut river channels, covered with a tan- 

 gle of low shrubbery. Up the river canons on the ocean 

 side, and fringing the valleys, the great coniferous for- 

 est begins, and after a few miles the Redwood begins 

 and stretches to the tops of the range which, at twenty 

 miles from the sea, forms a barrier 2,000 feet high between 

 the coast and the interior. This barrier range, diversified 

 by masses of Douglas Spruce, Oak woods, thickets of 

 Chemisal or mixed shrubs, open grassy slopes, tiny moun- 

 tain meadows or wide enclosed valleys, and with small 

 patches of Redwood in canons or cool slopes on its land- 

 ward side, is a most interesting field for the botanist. Mid- 

 way of Mendocino County a prominent ridge crosses the 

 mountain range, towering up from five thousand to six 

 thousand feet above its lofty neighbors, snow-capped until 

 summer, its lower slopes covered with forests of Yellow 



