l82 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 270. 



land, a continuous forest extended from the shores of the 

 Atlantic to beyond the Mississippi, except where the prai- 

 ries were projected, like a great bay, to the shores of Lake 

 Michigan and a few treeless valleys, where the Indians 

 seem to have set annual fires to facilitate the chase of the 

 ^ buffalo, w^hich, in those days, ranged far eastward. There 

 were other treeless regions, as, for example, a fringe of 

 salt-marsh along the seaboard, some narrow river-bot- 

 toms subject to annual floods, and here and there a 

 clearing where the Indians cultivated corn. Treeless, too, 

 in those days were the summits of the White Mountains, and 

 probably some of the summits of the Alleghanies, as they 

 are to-day. Out of this forest have been cut, according to 

 Mr. Gannett's estimate, 270,000 square miles which are 

 now devoted to agriculture, besides the land occupied by 

 cities, highways, etc. Undoubtedly, forests have in recent 

 years encroached largely upon the prairies, and woods 

 have started in some of the once treeless valleys of Penn- 

 sylvania and Virginia. But what trustworthy data are at 

 hand to prove that this forest-increase covers anything like 

 the quarter of a million and more of square miles which 

 was once forest, and now is plow-land ? Until some care- 

 ful survey shall show the contrary, the people at large will 

 not be persuaded that after working steadily for centuries 

 to get rid of our forests we have not been able to prevent 

 them from holding their own against axe and fire. 



In the above estimate no guess is made at the amount of 

 timber wasted in lumbering operations, by fire, or by other 

 causes, although Mr. Gannett admits that this useless destruc- 

 tion is extensive. It is well known, however, that in many 

 cases only a comparatively small portion of the material in 

 the standing trees is marketed, while the remainder is left to 

 rot on the ground, and in the Tenth Census it is estimated 

 that in a single year fire had run over ten million acres of 

 forest-land. All these facts are so well known that there 

 would be little need of noticing the statement of Mr. Gan- 

 nett that the area of the country's woodland is increasing 

 but for the fact that he is one of the most distinguished 

 geographers in the country, and there is danger that his 

 random conjectures on matters with which he is not familiar 

 will be accepted as of equal weight with his carefully consid- 

 ered utterances on subjects within his own special branch of 

 science. Certainly Americans have never shown such, an un- 

 due veneration for their forests that there is need to belittle 

 their influence or value. The growing scarcity of some of 

 our most valuable woods is one proof that we have failed 

 to appreciate them as we should. Instead of advising the 

 people to let our forests take care of themselves we should 

 welcome every effort to instruct them as to the impor- 

 tance of forests in their relation to the life of civilized man. 

 It is a wasteful policy to allow them to struggle on without 

 assistance, even in a region where trees will spring up of 

 themselves whenever they have an opportunity, for skilled 

 forest-management means an increased production of im- 

 proved material. To permit their extermination on the 

 arid slopes, where they will not reproduce themselves 

 without human assistance, would be a crime for which pos- 

 terity would justly execrate us. 



Notes from Central California. 



LARKSPUR is in Marin County, California, about thirteen 

 miles from San Francisco, and at the foot of Mount Tamal- 

 pais. The valleys and slopes of the lower ranges of hills were 

 originally covered with a magnificent growth of Redwood, Bay, 

 Madrofia, Live Oak, White Oak, Tan-bark Oak and Buckeyes. 

 There was a saw-mill erected here in 1847, one of the first on 

 the Pacific coast, and all of the trees easy of access were felled. 

 A few years later wood-choppers were all through the hills cut- 

 ting the remainder of the umber and selling it to the brick- 

 yards at four dollars per cord. After the choppers had com- 

 pleted their work fires ran over the hills, and have done so every 

 few years since. But, despite all of this, a few fine specimens 

 of all the above-mentioned trees are found in the sequestered 

 nooks overlooked by the woodmen, but most of the hill-sides 

 are covered with a thick growth of chapparal, consisting of 



Manzanita, Heteromeles, Ceanothus, Poison Oak, Adenostoma, 

 Baccharis and other low-growing shrubs. In the valleys and 

 moist spots on the hill-sides the Redwoods are growing in cir- 

 cles about the stumps of the fallen trees. They are from thirty 

 to seventy-five feet high and as straight as an arrow. The 

 original trees were of an enormous size in the main canon, some 

 of them measuring over twenty-five feet in diameter, and the 

 wood, which seems almost indestructible, is now as sound as 

 it was the day it was cut, forty-seven years ago. There are 

 places along the creek where the banks have washed away, 

 showing large logs six feet below the surface, where they have 

 lain, perhaps, for hundreds of years. 



Stumps of the California Bay-tree (Umb.ellularia Californica) 

 are frequently found from three to five feet in diameter, and still 

 alive at the roots, sending up shoots annually, and annually 

 eaten off by the stock raised on the hills which are too steep to 

 cultivate. Some fine old specimens are still standing, and 

 some of the young ones which have got the start of the cattle 

 are now fine large trees. This tree, to my eyes, is the most 

 beautiful of the California broad-leaved evergreens. A few 

 Oregon Maples (Acer macrophyllum) are found here, but a 

 great deal of dead wood appearsamong their branches to show 

 that the locality does not agree with them. The Elder here 

 makes a large forest-tree, in some instances being over two 

 feet in diameter. A few Azaleas, here called Honeysuckles, 

 are found growing along the water-courses, and on the hill- 

 sides are found impenetrable masses of Ceanothus, just now 

 in bloom. Here we also find the evergreen Huckleberry (Vac- 

 cinium ovatum), especially where the fires ran over the hills 

 two years ago. Ceanothus-seedlings are also seen here, but 

 none are found under the older bushes, where millions of seeds 

 fall every year. A few fine specimens of the Tan-bark Oak 

 (Quercus densiflora) are still standing. This tree is also very 

 tenacious of lite, and springs up rapidly from the collar. On 

 the northern face of the low range of hills dividing Larkspur 

 Canon from Ross Valley the trees are much more difficult to 

 reach, and considerable of the natural timber is still standing, 

 among them fine large trees of Quercus agrifolia, O. densi- 

 flora, O. Kelloggii, Madrona (Arbutus Menziesii), Bay, Red- 

 wood and the beautiful and rare Torreya Californica, or Cali- 

 fornia Nutmeg.one specimen being over seventy feet high and 

 three feet in diameter. The trunk continues this size to the 

 first branches, some twenty feet from the ground. The first 

 flowers to appear here this season were those of Scoliopus, 

 followed by Castilleia, Dodecatheon, Cynoglossum, Esch- 

 scholtzia. Ranunculus, Tellima, Vaccinium, and then the 

 ever-beautiful Manzanita was covered with bloom. 



Larkspur, Calif. ThomaS H. DouglaS. 



Notes of Mexican Travel. — II. 



ON THE TAMPICO BRANCH. 



T ET US consider in detail the several diverse districts trav- 

 ■'— ' ersed by the Tampico branch of the Mexican Central. 

 Heading for the north-east from San Luis, the train now glides 

 over plains whose arable portions are sown to Wheat in win- 

 ter and planted to Corn in summer, wherever irrigation is pos- 

 sible, or in sunmiers when the rainfall is sufficient to make a 

 crop of Corn without irrigation ; or, anon, it winds among dry, 

 rocky hills scantily covered with vegetation, conspicuous 

 amongst which are various wild Cactuses and Agaves. Fifty 

 miles out from San Luis we enter the San Jose Pass of the 

 Guadalcazar Mountains, mountains of gray limestone, moder- 

 ately forested and the haunt of deer. The principal arbores- 

 cent species here are Quercus grisea and polymorpha, Juglans 

 Mexicana and Sargentia Greggii. In meagre soil, partially cov- 

 ering extensive ledges of lime-rock, was found here Neoprin- 

 glea integrifolia, Watson, a slender shrub, ten to fifteen feet 

 high. Rooting in the fissures of the bare ledges was found 

 an undescribed Dahlia, D. dissecta, Watson, with finely dis- 

 sected leaves and purple flowers. On these ledges certain 

 Rock-brakes grow in abundance and in perfection ; Pellaea 

 pulchella, Notholoena sinuata and Aschenborniana, Cheilanthes 

 leucopoda, etc. 



By a sinuous grade cut in the mountain-side the road 

 descends to a lower bench of the table-lands, the plains 

 of Cerritos, similar in character to those left behind ; and thence 

 our course bears eastward. 



Beyond the town of Cerritos the road leads for forty miles 

 over the great hacienda of Angostura, an estate owned by the 

 family of Espinosa y Cervantes, descended from the old Span- 

 ish Counts of Penasco. This family does not dislike Americans 

 on general principles, and is, of course, given to the practice 

 of the fullest Mexican courtesy and hospitality. So, in its great 



