May 27, 1896.] 



Garden and Forest. 



213 



and though the finest specimens are found in low ground, 

 as "Old Elm" at Paxtang, with a diameter of almost five 

 feet, others like the Elm at State Street entrance to the 

 Capitol grounds, Harrisburg, live in entirely changed con- 

 ditions without evidence of deterioration. The State Street 

 Elm has a diameter of three and a half feet, and stands in 

 what was originally swampy land. In 1785 it was already 

 a large tree, and was one of the landmarks in laying out 

 the town. The land has long since been drained, and the 

 tree has endured everything that a street-tree has to suffer, 

 yet, in spite of escaping gas, encroaching pavements, dust, 

 blizzards and electric linemen, is still a beautiful tree and 

 dignifies the entrance-way it adorns. 



The great Elm at Dauphin, known locally as the Seven 

 Brothers (see page 215), also belongs to the low-branching 

 class, and with a circumference of twenty-four feet and a 

 spread to branches of almost a hundred feet, is one of the 

 most notable trees in the lower Susquehanna Valley, and 

 if a single tree probably the largest. Its local name refers 

 to the main branches of the tree, and not to the trunk, 

 which, if compound, is formed of not more than four boles. 

 Those who have known the Dauphin Elm longest, how- 

 ever, consider it one tree, and state that they have seen a 

 distinct increase in its size during their lifetime. 



The Elm stands on the river-bank, midway between the 

 lock of the Pennsylvania Canal and the river, at this point 

 only a hundred feet apart. The crest of the bank is about 

 thirty feet above low-water mark, and the tree-trunk, which 

 extends from near the crest some distance down the sloping 

 bank, has pronounced differences in form on the upper 

 more protected side, and the lower side, exposed to fresh- 

 ets. The lowest divergence of branches occurs on the side 

 facing the lock, where the branching begins two feet above 

 the ground ; on the river-side the lowest divergence is four 

 feet above the base of trunk. Owing to the peculiar fea- 

 tures of the ground and encroaching foliage of trees on 

 both sides of the canal, it is impossible to get a good view 

 of this remarkable tree when it bears its great canopy of 

 leaves. Through the summer its crown rises, dome-like, 

 above the surrounding mass of foliage, and may be distin- 

 guished from points on the opposite shore of the Susque- 

 hanna River, here almost a mile in width. 



The picturesque beauty of the Susquehanna at this point, 

 with the bold cliffs of the Narrows below, and the wide 

 bays of the river running inshore above, is too well known 

 to call for any description, but the traveler by rail goes 

 faster and faster through this part of the country, and the 

 real Susquehanna is almost a sealed book, except to rafts- 

 men and canoemen, and will continue to be so unless, with 

 the application of electricity, travel upon the canals follow- 

 ing its course becomes once again a possibility. 



The Dauphin Elm has been held in grateful remem- 

 brance by thousands of men and animals who in the more 

 than sixty years of the canal's existence have enjoyed a 

 brief rest in its shade, as they halted on their weary march 

 from the mountains to tidewater. Besides this army of 

 humble-folk, many well-known travelers passed beneath 

 the Elm in the twenty years when packet travel was the 

 ordinary means of transit through this part of the state, 

 and Dickens in his American Noles has given his impres- 

 sions of the journey. 



The immediate surroundings of the Elm suggest a 

 consideration of the present status of trees, especially 

 those of commanding size. They appear to have no rights 

 that any one is bound to respect, and yet there is nothing 

 unreasonable in the idea that a tree of distinction should 

 receive a certain amount of consideration. It is not an 

 exaggeration to state that generally in the rural districts, 

 the difficulty of seeing all of a tree is in direct propor- 

 tion to its size. A tree of medium size will serve as a prop 

 for spades and hoes and fence-rails, but with increase in 

 size comes a greater opportunity to pile up, until in the 

 case of a Chestnut whose crown and blossoms I saw last 

 summer and supposed it to have a trunk somewhere, the 

 visible connection between the spreading limbs and the 



ground was formed of several agricultural implements, a 

 broken wagon, some railroad ties and a stable door. The 

 ordinary treatment of trees at present depends entirely on 

 the point of view, and this in matters of greater importance 

 than trees is largely a matter of condition and education. A 

 man has an undoubted legal right to cover his own trees with 

 barn doors, if he feels so disposed, but, with the growth of 

 sentiments such as were expressed at the Forestry meeting 

 recently held in Philadelphia, it is reasonable to hope that 

 the time is passing quickly when a stately, beautiful tree, 

 such as the great Elm, will suggest itself simply as a way 

 station for tools, or as the party wall of a henhouse. 



The photographs of the Elm and the Dauphin Chestnut 

 (page 114, No 421, Garden and Forest) were taken by Mr. 

 George Roberts, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 



Ann Arbor, Mich. M. L. Dock. 



The Flora of the California Coast Range. — II. 



THE MENDOCINO COAST BARRENS. 



THE rivers of western Mendocino County run a short 

 course to the sea, the larger ones rising in a high 

 barrier range, which, running north and south, divides the 

 county. Their course cuts through high mountain chains 

 clothed densely with Redwood forest. The ranges de- 

 crease in height as they approach the ocean, and in the 

 last few miles of their course the rivers are tidal canals 

 hemmed in by steep slopes covered with Redwood, Fir, 

 Abies grandis, and western Hemlock. Groves of Alder, which 

 here reaches its best development, are found in the few 

 narrow bottom-lands. The underbrush is varied and luxu- 

 riant. Ferns riot everywhere, and the common Brake, 

 Pteris aquilana, attains giant proportions, sometimes form- 

 ing dense masses eight feet high. From the tidal rivers the 

 steep slopes rise for half a mile and suddenly open on small 

 rolling table-lands, locally called barrens, or, very inap- 

 propriately, prairies. These barrens, found between all 

 the larger streams along the coast, are sometimes four 

 miles wide, while at some points they cover only a few 

 acres. They are all of the same altitude and geological 

 formation and appear to be the remains of an extensive 

 table-land, through which the streams have furrowed out 

 their present courses. 



These barrens are an interesting field for botanists, and 

 from an aesthetic point of view most picturesque. They 

 are slightly uneven, breaking into swales at the sides and 

 bordered by an irregular line of forests. On the ocean side 

 the land drops by heavily wooded slopes and gullies until 

 the point is reached where the ocean has gnawed it away 

 into rocky bluffs, and the skeletons of the older lands are 

 seen in islets, rocks and reefs far out to sea. Fogs roll 

 inland over the barrens and the air is always fresh and 

 moist. Everywhere are masses of trees and thickets, with 

 occasional open groves of Pinus muricata, the Prickly Pine, 

 the black trunks of the trees rising fifty feet high, with 

 scant)' leaves, uneven limbs, and shrinking inland from the 

 prevailing ocean winds, the cones of many years still 

 clinging to them, or, perhaps, all life gone and the skeleton 

 only adorned by the ever-persisting open cones. 



In the lower areas, which are so flat that the water stands 

 there in pools in the winter, and where the scant)- covering 

 of peaty soil above the impervious clay would seem inca- 

 pable of supporting life, there are thickets almost impene- 

 trable of the north coast Cypress, Cupressus Goveniana, 

 slender, straight, cone-covered, and mingled with them the 

 north coast Scrub Pine, equally slender and straight. When 

 this dense growth reaches a height of ten feet perhaps a 

 bush fire will sweep through it, leaving a denuded space 

 or skeleton stems, and the lire' which consumes the thicket 

 opens the cones and seeds the land abundantly for an 

 tangle. In the hard struggle for existence these little trees 

 fruit when a foot high. Dense tracts of them stretch 

 monotonously away in every direction. The overflow 

 from brackish pools and from dammed springs gathers 

 along the sides in swales with deeper soils and in small 



