72 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 470. 



trary, if the amputated stump is left, so that the sap 

 does not circulate to its extremity, it will necessarily die 

 back to the point where the sap ceases to flow. This 

 simple fact was illustrated in the first volume of this 

 journal on page 349, with cuts taken from "A Treatise on 

 Pruning Forest and Ornamental Trees,'' translated from 

 the French of Monsieur A. des Car, and published in 1881 

 by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. 

 A little reflection will show any one that as the living 

 trunk or branch grows and envelops what is merely a dead 

 plug, the tree will inevitably decay to the centre, for. 

 as the rot fungus destroys the lifeless wood, water will 

 soak in and carry these elements of decay deeper and 

 deeper until the tree is hollowed out and finally made 

 worthless. 



All our native forest-trees take kindly to this treatment, 

 and it was nine years ago when we wrote that most of 

 them could be rejuvenated in this way. We then ex- 

 plained that decrepit Red, Black, White and Swamp Oaks, 

 Black Birches, Beeches, Hickories and Elms had been thus 

 pruned in the Arnold Arboretum where the trees in the 

 natural woods were perishing from pasturage and from 

 neglect. They were covered with dead branches, the foliage 

 upon them was thin and poor, their dying tops showed 

 that they had but a short space to live. It seemed im- 

 portant to save many of these old trees until a growth of 

 self-sown seedlings could be brought on to replace them 

 and a covering grown for the forest floor, and as some of 

 these old trees were pruned each year those which had 

 been operated upon first, or some six or seven years 

 earlier, already showed in their dense dark-colored leaves 

 and compact growth that pruning alone without any fresh 

 soil or fertilizing material could put new life into a tree 

 that was feeble and dying. Subsequent experience has 

 confirmed the usefulness of this practice, and we can re- 

 peat our counsel with confidence, and advise all persons 

 who have deciduous trees which have begun to fail to 

 undertake the renewal of their vigor by intelligent surgery _ 



The Chemise World. 



OF all Californian shrubs or trees, the Chemise brush or 

 Chemisal, Adenostoma fascicularis, gives most char- 

 acter to the landscapes of the Coast Ranges. What the 

 Heaths are to western Europe, Chemisal is to California, 

 and vast tracts of poor mountain lands are covered with 

 thickets composed almost entirely of this one shrub. 



Outside of the timber belt, which begins at Monterey 

 and extends at intervals to Oregon, there is scarcely a 

 mountain on the Coast Range of California, from San Diego 

 on the south to Trinity, almost at the Oregon line, which 

 is not in part covered by it. The greater the distance from 

 the ocean the larger the percentage of mountain lands 

 which this hardy shrub has taken possession of, until many 

 sections of the eastern part of the Coast Ranges are almost 

 entirely given up to it, and from the valleys to the moun- 

 tain tops it holds a sway only shared by a few of the 

 hardiest shrubs, Oaks and conifers. Many millions of acres 

 of Government lands, which look so inviting on the maps, 

 are but Chemise patches, and, as now, will always be a no- 

 man's land, harboring only the deer and the coyote. Hardly 

 a spot is too steep to allow it a foothold, hardly a soil too 

 meager to afford it sustenance. Fires sweep over and 

 leave blackened stubs, but with its unusual vitality it soon 

 starts a new growth. In a few years rocks, hills and slopes 

 are again masked by a close cover of blue-green which 

 gives to the mountains a softness of outline peculiar to the 

 Coast Ranges, and very beautiful, too, although the 

 monotony of flowing lines often becomes tiresome. 



Ukiah Valley is hemmed on the eastern side by a long, 

 even-topped range of mountains. On the map they bear 

 the Indian name of Mayacamas, being one of the num- 

 berless short ranges which form the jumble known as the 

 Coast Range. The Mayacamas divide the chain of valleys, 

 once lakes, of which Ukiah valley is one, from another 



chain of lakes which are now slowly undergoing the same 

 process of extinction. The largest of these is Clear Lake, 

 a beautiful body of water, mountain-hemmed, thirty-five 

 miles long, with a maximum width of eight miles. Next 

 to Ukiah valley the range rises first in rolling foothills, 

 which give way to steep grassy slopes interspersed with 

 Oak woods, or occasional Chemise-covered barren mounds. 

 Above the Oaks the upper range is to be seen as an endless 

 succession of round-topped knolls or smooth slopes, all 

 Chemise-covered, with the sky-line seldom broken by fringe 

 of distant rock or tree mass. 



If a more intimate knowledge of the high Chemise world 

 is desired, access is not difficult. Many trails or wood 

 roads lead through the Oak woods and the open ranges, 

 and traveling is not difficult on foot or on horseback. Half- 

 way up the mountains the Chemise is entered, and the hills 

 which from the valley seemed covered with a smooth low 

 coat are found to be tangles of dense brush from four to eight 

 feet high, except where a fire has recently burned. Travel 

 in the Chemise is of necessity pretty closely confined to the 

 trails which have been made along the ridges by deer, 

 Indians or hunters, and even on these trails it is not always 

 easy. But let the hunter stray from the trail and he is apt 

 soon to find himself in a thicket so impenetrable that he 

 can neither force his way through nor crawl under, and it 

 does not take a long experience in attempting to pull him- 

 self over the tops to convince him that the trail is the only 

 satisfactory place for travel. 



So year after year the Chemise grows, and by the not 

 infrequent winter snows is pressed down more compactly, 

 until some day a hunter, wishing to drive out the game or 

 make for himself an easier passage, drops a match in the 

 tinder underneath, and a fire is started which rolls over the 

 hills in sheets of flames, making the grandest of pyrotech- 

 nical displays for the valley dwellers. Creeping among the 

 dead leaves in thinner brush, it burns swathes for miles 

 and finally dies out only when fuel is exhausted, it may be 

 in days or weeks. Where the brush has been thick and 

 the wind favorable only short stubs are left, but as often as 

 not the leaves and twigs are burned and the stout stems 

 remain a chevaux-de-frise almost as hard to penetrate as 

 the original thicket, and even more destructive of good 

 temper and clothes. 



A favorite trail into the great expanse of Chemise between 

 here and Clear Lake leads along the main ridge which 

 divides the waters flowing into Russian River from those 

 which, flowing at first into Clear Lake, finally find their way 

 into the Sacramento River. This route, closely hemmed 

 for miles by brush, gives constantly changing views of the 

 beautiful Ukiah valley to the west, and of other valleys 

 connecting with it on the north and the south. All about 

 and to the east is a far wilder scene. For mile after mile, 

 slope after slope, hill after hill, far-stretching ranges bear 

 the same covering of Chemisal, and in the general view 

 scarcely a shrub, tree or mass of rock rises above the lone- 

 somely monotonous mass, except for infrequent groves of 

 the straight and symmetrical west coast Scrub Pine, Pinus 

 attenuata, on prominent points. Near at hand encircling 

 ranges form a large basin which in turn is filled with a con- 

 fused medley of lower ridges and hills. Rising head and 

 shoulders above the wild Chemise region to the north and 

 west, high snow-covered mountains can be seen, Pine 

 forests ascending far up their slopes. The great dome to 

 the north-east is Snow Mountain. In the middle rises Pine 

 Mountain, a mass of conifers to its summit, while to the 

 north the long ridge of San Hedrin can be seen. The long 

 expanse of wild country is only broken by a tiny vale in 

 the basin below. Among these thousands of acres of wil- 

 derness, perhaps forty acres form a rich little valley, 

 watered by mountain springs and giving a good home- 

 stead to a mountaineer. Like an oasis in a desert, it inten- 

 sifies by contrast the loneliness of the surroundings. 

 Desolate and barren it may seem, but I have found this 

 wild region peculiarly rich in beautiful spots, and its inac- 

 cessibility shelters many a beautiful flower. Pretty little 



