272 



Garden and Forest. 



[Nttmber 3S5. 



imagination. And why should not the roadsides of a civil- 

 ized country be treated with as much regard to their beauty 

 as public parks are? In one sense they are quite as truly 

 a part of the general property of the people. This view of 

 the case prevails in one of the hill towns in Connecticut, 

 where an association of gentlemen has been organized espe- 

 cially to protect the roadsides. This is a matter worth the 

 attention of every village improvement society, and where 

 no such bodies exist much can be accomplished by per- 

 ■ sonal argument and remonstrance, and if the subject is 

 agitated on every occasion and discussed in the local 

 papers a sentiment will be engendered which sooner or 

 later will make itself felt. The people who destroy this 

 beauty do not do it maliciously. They simply do not 

 realize how much loveliness they are laying waste, and 

 if their attention was called to it, and remonstrances 

 made in every case where natural scenery is defaced, the 

 evil would decrease. This has been demonstrated more 

 than once. 



One argument more potent with many men than all 

 other considerations is this : Natural beauty has a distinct 

 money value. As society becomes more enlightened this 

 beauty will be valued more highly. It is a business truth, 

 that the man who diminishes the beauty of his estate by 

 carelessly chopping down trees or defacing its road bor- 

 ders at the same time lowers the market value of his own 

 land and that of his neighbor's. It is also a truth demon- 

 strated in practice, that the people of any town who make 

 an intelligent effort to preserve and develop its natural 

 resources in the way of scenery also make a distinct addi- 

 tion to the market value of every acre within its limits. 



Notes of Mexican Travel. — X. 



OAXACA. 



IT was the remote state of Oaxaca, situated on the Pacific 

 coast, and occupying the extreme southern portion of 

 the Mexican Republic, which mainly engaged my atten- 

 tion on my tenth botanical journey to that country. Land- 

 ing with my assistant from a steamship of the Ward 

 line at Tampico on April 26th, 1894, I took a train of the 

 Mexican Central Railway early the following morning for 

 the capital city. The long winter drought was still un- 

 broken, and the seventy miles of lowland plain first crossed 

 were dusty and hot. In the sparse forest covering it most 

 plants were dormant, only a few shrubs showing blooms. 

 A welcome relief to this oppressive monotony, and all the 

 more interesting and delightful by contrast with it, was 

 our ascent of the successive benches of the verge of the 

 table-land ; the abrupt hills covered by strange growths, 

 the beetling masses of lime-rock towering on the sides of 

 the canons threaded by us, the intervales occupied by open 

 meadows, the feeding-grounds of deer, or tropical forests 

 embellished by epiphytal plants in variety, the blue river 

 winding through these, with its wonderful chain of cas- 

 cades a mile in extent, white torrents pouring into deep 

 blue pools, green-rimmed with moss-covered tufa ; the 

 Palm groves on either hand, the Coffee plantations in the 

 dim mountain forests, the Caiie-fields showing light green 

 far down the valley, the bold climbing by our train of the 

 mountain-side through untamable wilds, its alternate cling- 

 ing to dizzy brinks and rolling through tunnels cut in the 

 solid rock ; and, finally, the unmatched view down the far 

 receding vista of the great canon through which we had 

 come up into the cooler air and broader light of the table- 

 land. Many a time before had I passed through these 

 scenes, but never had their charm been greater, and never 

 had the exhilaration at gaining the highlands been fuller. 



It is by the Mexican Railway that we choose to travel 

 into the south-east from the city of Mexico. Over meadows 

 covered with brownish Salt-grass we pass between lakes 

 Texcoco and San Cristobal, which at this season show 

 wide margins of bare earth whitened by alkali. We quit 

 the Valley of Mexico for the Plains of Apam, which wear a 



bluish green hue from their frequent plantations of Agave 

 Americana, the source of j^ulque, the national beverage. 

 All the way to Puebla we see much of the best soil, the 

 extensive glades and hillsides of this open country devoted 

 to this culture. At this season the landscape shows scarcely 

 any other verdure. Not until July will rains refresh the 

 parched earth and cover it with springing grass and abun- 

 dant flowers. 



Thus 116 miles to Puebla, a large and boastful cit)', 

 situated in the midst of the almost unbroken plain lying 

 between the snow-peaks of Popocatepetl and Orizaba. 

 Here we pass the night to take train at six a. m. on the 

 Mexican Southern Railway, leading from this point to 

 Oaxaca, a distance, as the road runs, of 230 miles. When 

 we have gained Tehuacan, seventy-five miles out from 

 Puebla, we find ourselves on the border of the Plains of 

 Puebla. To the east of Tehuacan rises a chain of moun- 

 tams which connect Mount Orizaba with the mountains of 

 Oaxaca, here visible in the south-east. As these mountains 

 present a barrier to the rains which come up from the Gulf, 

 the region of Tehuacan is comparatively arid, and from the 

 scanty soil of its hills and mesas of lime-rock we see grow- 

 ing the vegetation peculiar to such conditions — Cactuses, 

 Yuccas and stunted shrubs. 



Such is the character of the country till we come to San 

 Antonio, the first station within the state of Oaxaca. Here 

 we enter a bewildering labyrinth of river cafions, narrow 

 and heated gorges, often with picturesque walls of red con- 

 glf)merate. On every hand arise high above us brown, 

 arid steeps which bristle with tall Cactuses overtopping 

 scantily leaved shrubs. Only along the water-course stand 

 in a narrow line more verdant and umbrageous grovi'ths. 

 For three or four hours our train is gliding along such 

 cations. Here and there they open out to give room for 

 strips of arable intervale with ranches or villages ; in many 

 places they are so narrow that their wall has been cut down 

 or tunneled through to make place for the roadbed. We 

 descend with the water to an elevation of only 1,800 feet 

 above sea-level ; then, leaving the main stream, we follow 

 up one of its branches toward the continental divide. At 

 an altitude of 3,000 feet the Cactuses disappear, and the 

 hillsides are covered thinly with numerous species of sub- 

 tropical shrubs and trees. Between 4,000 and 5,000 feet the 

 forest-growth becomes heavier, and its composition is 

 somewhat changed. A Palm and an arborescent Nolina, 

 presumably N. inermis, Watson, here occur on dry lime- 

 stone bluffs. The station of Las Sedas occupies the sum- 

 mit at an elevation of 6,000 feet. This is a gap in the 

 water-shed, whose undulations of limestone formation are 

 covered with a meagre fijrest of Juniperus flaccida, Schl, 

 and various Oaks. To the west of this point, occupying 

 the north-western corner of the state, lies the INIixteca Alta, 

 a rugged region of 6,000 to 9,000 feet elevation. East by 

 south trends the Andean system, here called the Sierra de 

 Juarez of late (formerly the Sierra de Oaxaca), its highest 

 peaks rising to 10,000 to 11,000 feet. Southward stretches 

 the lovely Valley of Oaxaca, a hundred miles in length. 



A run from Las Sedas of thirty miles and a descent of 

 1,000 feet brings us at nightfall to the city of Oaxaca, with 

 its 40,000 inhabitants, situated beside the spreading sands of 

 a river, and surrounded at all times of the year by fields of 

 Maize and Sugar-cane. It was early May, when we settled in 

 Oaxaca to work the surrounding country, and found in Rev. 

 Lucius C. Smith an excellent friend and co-worker in 

 botanical pursuits, and in his mission-house admirable 

 quarters. But little rain had fallen ; and, except in irri- 

 gated fields, the earth still showed brown. Luxuriantly 

 green, however, were the heavily forested mountains sur- 

 rounding the valley. North-east from the city, its crest 

 only a dozen miles away, rises to over 10,000 feet a spur 

 of the Sierra de Juarez, called the Sierra (or Cerro) de San 

 Felipe, after the village at its foot. On the west side of the 

 valley the Sierra de Clavellinas, tvv'enty-five miles distant, 

 has an altitude of 9,000 feet. Nearer, in the south-east, is 

 the flank of another group of mountains, while within a 



