122 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 212. 



the amount of this covenng- and the brightness of its color 

 vary greatly on different individuals ; it is generally com- 

 mon, however, on the leaves while they are young, but 

 gradually disappears, leaving the under surface whitish or 

 bluish white. 



In the caiions of the Coast-ranges, where the Golden- 

 leaved Oak grows at its best, it is usually a tree forty to 

 sixty feet in height, although individuals nearly a hundred 

 feet tall may sometimes be found, with a short trunk two 

 to four or rarely ten feet in diameter, dividing near the 

 ground into great branches which, spreading at right an- 

 gles, touch the soil with their extremities and form a mass 

 of foliage sometimes a hundred and fift}' feet across. The 

 bark of the trunk and of the branches is ashy gray and 

 covered with flak)'' scales. The leaves, like the young 

 shoots, as they unfold are clothed with the golden pubes- 

 cence, and make a charming contrast with the mature 

 leaves of previous years. These are usually about two 

 inches long, oblong, pointed, obtuse or slightly heart- 

 shaped at the base, and usually entire on old trees, 

 although on young and very vigorous trees, and especially 

 on suckers, they are sinuate-toothed. They are thick, 

 firm, bright and lustrous on the upper surface at first, 

 although in time the bright green becomes more or less 

 shaded with yellow. The male flowers, with eight to ten 

 stamens and a five to seven-leaved perianth, are produced 

 in short often branched catkins, while the female flowers 

 are borne on short stalks, or are sessile on the branches. 

 The acorn is oval, obtuse, half an inch to an inch and a 

 half long, and is usually pubescent on the inner surface of 

 the shell. Its base is enclosed in a cup covered with small 

 appressed scales more or less hidden in the dense fulvous 

 tomentum. The cup varies remarkably in shape and size, 

 sometimes being hemispherical and sometimes saucer- 

 shaped and very thick, with a broad thick rim. 



In the fog-laden atmosphere of the valleys of the Coast- 

 ranges Quercus chrysolepis develops into such a tree as 

 we have tried to describe ; more remote from the coast, 

 and as it often grows scattered on high foot-hills, it be- 

 comes more symmetrical in the general outline of its nar- 

 row head, or at high elevations it is smaller, and on the 

 slopes of the Sierra Nevada, where it is often found between 

 three and eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, in 

 Lower California and on the mountains of southern Arizona 

 and of Sonora it is a small tree or often a little shrub with 

 minute leaves and small acorns, but with the same gen- 

 eral characters that serve to distinguish the great tree of 

 the Coast-valleys. Some idea of the manner of growth of 

 the mountain form of the tree and of the general appear- 

 ance of the vegetation of the high slopes of the Sierra 

 Nevada, may be obtained from the illustration which is 

 published on page 127 of this issue, and which is made 

 from a photograph taken by Dr. Wm. H. Rollins on the 

 mountains overlooking the Yosemite Valley, although a 

 series of illustrations will be needed to illustrate properly 

 the appearance and manner of growth of this remarkable 

 and interesting tree. 



As a timber-tree Quercus chrysolepis is the most valu- 

 able broad-leaved tree of the California forests, although 

 the trunk rarely produces logs long enough to manufacture 

 into boards. The vi^ood, however, which is very heavy, 

 solid and tough, is well suited for wagon-wheels, agricul- 

 tural implements and other tools, and the best trees, in 

 spite of their inaccessibility, are now fast disappearing. 

 It is probable, therefore, that in a few 3'ears, unless they 

 can be protected in some way, all these great Oaks, the 

 glory of California, worthy companions of the Sugar Pine 

 and the Sequoias, and fit emblems of the Golden State, will 

 have disappeared forever ; for no one in California ever 

 thinks of planting these trees or of protecting self-sown 

 seedlings, which fall a prey to sheep and cattle, or are swept 

 out of existence by the fires which year after year are 

 burning ever-increasing gaps in the Pacific coast forests. 



The California Oaks, when removed from their home, 

 have not usually flourished. They are not hardy in the 



easf, where, perhaps, our summers are too moist for them ; 

 and in northern and central Europe the)r do not succeed, 

 but in Australia, or in some part of the Mediterranean 

 basin, perhaps some spot can be found where congenial 

 conditions can be provided for these trees, and where, if 

 they grow as they have grown in the California valleys, 

 they will repay the care and labor needed to rear them. 



Suitable Names for Country Places. 



I 



N naming a country place there is great difficulty in hitting 

 upon a title that shall be pleasing and suggestive without 

 being hackneyed or savoring of sentimentality. 



In an old country like England, where the language bears 

 traces of Norse and Saxon and Roman occupation, there are 

 a number of strong monosyllables descriptive of certain divi- 

 sions of land that form effective combinations with more 

 familiar words, or with a family name, for the designation of 

 a country-seat or villa ; so that their old titles seem particu- 

 larly happy, and removed from the commonplace. Doomsday 

 Book contains a number of these ancient terms in its de- 

 scriptions of the holdings of the people in the days of William 

 the Conqueror. A toft was a grove of trees on a hill, a croft 

 an enclosure, the meadow-lands were divided into garths and 

 deals by great furrows plowed by eight yoke of oxen, the 

 wavering course of which can still be recognized from some 

 Yorkshire hill, as well as the wide sweeps made by them in 

 turning the corners, showing the curiously unchanging char- 

 acter of English country life. 



There were then, as now, moors, or heaths, of wide extent, 

 wolds — which sometimes mean a wood, and again a hilly re- 

 gion devoid of timber, which may once have borne a forest 

 on its rolling surface, of which only the name survives — and 

 holms, which signify low, flat stretches of land near a stream, 

 and also a river-islet. High ridges of land were known as rigs ; 

 isolated rocks, like towers, are still called tors ; the groves 

 were wealds, and the forest-clearings royds ; gate and forth, 

 in Yorkshire, still mean a road. The old English name for a 

 wild beast, deor, which in these combinations means a deer, 

 survives in Darby, or Derby ; in Darlands, also written Dare- 

 lands and Deerlands, and in Dar-ton, which is found in old 

 English as deortun (deer-park). A map of Derby, made in 

 161 1, contains an femblematic drawing of a deer-park sur- 

 rounded by a wooden fence, with a single deer in the middle. 



Also, in such names as Goat's Cliffe, Kid Tor, Lamb Hill and 

 Hart Hill linger pastoral reminiscences of old England ; 

 Gates head means the goat's hill, and probably Gad's hill is a 

 corruption of the same word, while the palace of the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, Lambeth, bears record of a heath on 

 which the lambs disported themselves before the town of 

 London was built. A reminiscence of the Druids lingers in 

 Selioke (blessed Oak), and a reminder of Christian zeal in 

 Swinnock (burnt Oak), where the bishops cut down and burned 

 these relics of heathen worship. 



Throughout England the rural districts in their names bear 

 traces of its history and its religions, of its early beliefs in 

 fairies and giants, in Norns and sprites, and of the transfer of 

 tradition to saints and the Virgin Mary, so that the titles of 

 towns and fields and homesteads are an unfailingly interesting 

 study. 



In our own geography we have reason to be grateful for 

 such Indian names as have not been supplanted by honored 

 English ones, or ugly inventions of our own, and some of these 

 traces still linger in beautiful country-seats along the Hudson 

 River, which are described by soft Algonquin syllables, as 

 Algonac (hill and river), which is the name of a fine place at 

 Newburgh. Canonchet is the Indian name of the Sprague 

 place in Rhode Island ; Noneguacut Farm of a Rhode Island 

 sea-shore home, and Chamcook of an estate on Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, formerly occupied by Mr. Wilson. 



There is a pleasant set of names that we often find used both 

 in England and this country, such as Hawkswood, Crow's-nest, 

 Oaklands, Hillside, Bellevue, Eagleswood, and the like, which 

 have become so hackneyed from frequent use that one hesi- 

 tates to employ them, no matter how appropriate they may 

 be to the surroundings. 



Other names have associations which endear them to us, 

 like Sunnyside, which Washington Irving has made famous ; 

 Edgewood, where Ik Marvel's farm continues to interest us ; 

 Idlewild, that Willis celebrated; Elmwood, where Lowell lived 

 and died, so that we hesitate to apply them to any less well- 

 known place. In fact, when one begins the search for a fresh 

 and telling name he finds the crop pretty well harvested 

 already. 



