42 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 467. 



cino to secure a park large enough to preserve the features 

 of this forest. Could this be accomplished — and all that is 

 needed to bring it about is the banding together of a few 

 men and women zealous for this particular cause — the 

 time would come after these great forests have disappeared 

 when such a Redwood park would be one of the most in- 

 teresting and instructive sights in the world and one of the 

 glories of the United States. To those who have wandered 

 among these mighty trees built up by the slow growth of 

 centuries and felt the inspiration of their solemn beauty, 

 the destruction of the Redwood forests seems to be a sacri- 

 lege which never should have been allowed, and, certainly, 

 if some small part of it is not preserved, a great wrong will 

 be done to the world, which will lose, with the passing of 

 the Redwoods, one of its fairest possessions. 



The Height of the Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens). 



IT has usually been considered by the students of our 

 trees that the Sierra Sequoia was the tallest, as it is the 

 largest, tree in North America. Three individuals, each 325 

 feet high, have been measured in the Calaberas Grove ; 

 and these, so far as I have been able to learn, are the 

 tallest American trees whose heights have been authorita- 

 tively recorded. On the 7th of last September, however, 

 General Henry L. Abbot, Mr. John Muirand I were on Eel 

 River, near the lumber-camp at Scotia, California, and 

 measured a Redwood which had lately been felled, and 

 which led us to suppose that this species grows to a much 

 greater height than any other American tree. This partic- 

 ular individual was only 662 years old, with a trunk diam- 

 eter of ten feet five inches at six feet above the ground, and 

 of nine feet fifteen feet above the ground; it measured 230 

 feet to the first limb, where the trunk was two feet nine 

 inches in diameter and 340 feet to the top of the stem. In 

 trunk diameter it was smaller than the average size of the 

 trees in this particular forest, which extends without a break 

 for about twenty miles along both banks of the Eel River ; 

 its height was not exceptional and may be taken as the 

 average height of the trees in this forest ; and the men in 

 this camp who pass their lives in working among these 

 trees were confident that individuals one hundred feet taller 

 than the tree we measured could be found. This, perhaps, 

 is not improbable, as Redwood trunks from fifteen to 

 twenty feet in diameter are not rare, and occasional trees 

 with trunks from twenty-two to twenty-five feet in diam- 

 eter can be found. Judging by the fact that the Eel River 

 trees, which had grown in a deep alluvial deposit, had only 

 attained a diameter of ten feet five inches in 662 years, 

 some large Redwoods must have lived through several 

 centuries and reached a much greater height. 



Of other trees measured in this forest one was forty-three 

 feet in circumference at five feet above the ground ; 

 another was forty-five feet in circumference at the same 

 height, and another fifty-two feet five inches. The trunk 

 of another measured four feet three inches in diameter 180 

 feet above the ground. 



s c. s. s. 



Notes of Mexican Travel. — XII. 



MY SUMMER IN THE VALLEY OF MEXICO. II. 



THE Pacific slope of the Serrania de Ajusco is likewise of 

 volcanic character. About six miles east from Cuerna- 

 vaca, at its foot, a stream of lava two miles wide ran down 

 over the valley. Here, at an elevation of but 5,000 feet, prevail 

 different climatic conditions from those of the Valley of 

 Mexico ; hence we find these lava-beds occupied by a sub- 

 tropical forest with trees of considerable size, and in this 

 shelter find shrubs and herbs which are the denizens of 

 warm lowlands. On several trips to Cuernavaca at inter- 

 vals throughout the summer I could not fail to explore 

 these lava-beds, and I was always repaid by numbers of 

 interesting plants. One of the most showy of these by 

 reason of its clustered stems, three or four feet tall, termi- 



nating in racemes of scarlet flowers, a truly striking plant, 

 was a Lamourouxia of recent discovery, L. Nelsoni, Rob. 

 & Greeum. The deep-wooded and wet barranca leading 

 from near the town up into the heart of the mountains con- 

 tinued to be an attraction on these visits to Cuernavaca 

 and to yield, as last year, new species, among which I 

 may mention a second species of Coulterophytum. 



When I arrived in Mexico City at the end of May the 

 hillsides in view in all directions were still brown, and it 

 was not till the middle of July that the tardy rains brought 

 out their verdure, consequently my attention was given 

 during the earlier weeks of the season to such plants as 

 grew about the wet meadows and the canals draining 

 them. Following up my quest of these, we went one day 

 by train of the Interoceanic Railroad to Ayotla, about forty 

 miles south-east of the city, and situated, according to the 

 map, on the north shore of Lake Chalco. We found, in- 

 stead of a lake, only a grassy and reedy savanna, all the 

 better, however, as a field for botanizing. On our way we 

 passed extensive drainage works designed to convey the 

 summer floods of Lake Chalco directly into Lake Texcoco. 

 A few weeks later the opening of the canal was celebrated 

 by a banquet, dignified by the presence of the President of 

 the Republic. When the great drainage tunnel below Lake 

 Texcoco shall be completed, nearly all the lakes of the 

 valley will disappear, and in their places will stretch green 

 pastures and fat fields of tillage. Lake Texcoco offers little 

 of interest to the botanist, and presents no beauty, except 

 when viewed from a distance. Surrounded by alkali flats, 

 which are thinly covered with salt grasses and the few 

 other plants common in such conditions, shrinking low 

 during most of the year within margins of whitened mud, 

 it is the great sink of all the valley. 



In strong contrast with all this, however, is Lake Xoc- 

 himilco, which lies close by the base of the southern hills 

 and is fed by sweet mountain springs. It is separated 

 from Lake Texcoco by the Hill of the Star and a row of 

 volcanoes which are truncated cones, but discharges its 

 waters into that lake by the Viga canal leading through 

 the city. Lake Xochimilco is now but a shallow lake ; 

 indeed, as we look over its surface from the Hill of the 

 Star, we see only a green expanse of sedges and reeds, 

 except where its waters are led through artificial ways. 

 On its southern border, hidden under trees except as to the 

 domes and roofs of its few venerable churches, stands the 

 Aztec town from which the lake takes its name. Two routes 

 lead to Xochimilco town, one by boat through the Viga 

 direct from Mexico City, the other by train to Tlalpam, 

 thence on foot or in saddle five miles eastward, at first over 

 an arenal or tract of volcanic sand, which yields its pecu- 

 liar plants, and finally over a stone causeway lined on both 

 sides by the fastigiated Willows commonly set on the banks 

 of canals throughout the valley. Xochimilco may be called 

 an Aztec Venice. Canals lead in all directions, and bronzed 

 and bare-limbed Indians, the men and boys in white cotton 

 and the women in blue scarfs and scarlet skirts, are deftly 

 propelling their canoes or scows by means of poles and 

 paddles. To this point are brought for shipment to the 

 great city in scows all the products of the mountains to the 

 south, and even from the tropic valleys below Cuernavaca, 

 products of forest, field and village. If it is a market day, 

 we find the town thronged with the Indians from many 

 villages around. The streets and broad plaza are bright 

 with crowds in clean, many-hued attire, and we see 

 much manly beauty to admire, and confess the come- 

 liness of many of these brown Indian maidens and ma- 

 trons. Their wares in endless variety, products of rude 

 handicraft, with grains, vegetables and fruits, fill the mar- 

 ket space and are spread out in the shade of the broad Ash- 

 trees of the plaza. 



The lower part of the town is extended over the lake 

 bottom. Here, as for a wide space outside, a network of 

 canals has been dug. With the black humus from these, 

 plats of land, irregular in form and varying in size from a 

 rood to an acre or more, have been built up. These are 



