CURRENT LITERATURE 
BOOK REVIEWS 
The trees of California 
Recent years have witnessed a national awakening to the great importance of 
forestry, and this in turn has excited a new interest in the trees themselves. People 
wish to learn something about them, their characteristics, how to distinguish one 
from another, and their proper names, so that there is an evident demand for 
books which shall impart this knowledge, not only in a form suited to botanists 
and technical students, but to any intelligent reader. Too often, however, in the 
effort to treat a scientific subject in a popular way, the science is so attenuated as 
to be practically valueless. Fortunately, Dr. Jepson, in supplying California 
with what is really a popular Sylva of the state,' has not fallen into this error. 
On the contrary, in his keys and descriptions he has adhered strictly to the methods 
of systematic botany, but so far as possible he has simplified them, and has made 
no unnecessary use of technical terms. 
The first fifty pages are devoted to a number of somewhat detached papers, 
relating to the characteristics of various tree groups, a consideration of the forest 
distribution in different parts of the state, and other pertinent topics. A section on 
“‘second-growth circles” is of much interest. These circles result, as is well 
known, from stump sprouts, and the author here considers the extent to which 
various species of Californian trees possess this valuable regenerative power. The 
wood possesses it to a preeminent degree, and the author holds that 80 per 
cent of the adult trees in a redwood forest originated from stump sprouts, and 
not from seeds; while some of the circles must have begun their existence more 
than 1000 years ago. 
Of equal interest is the discussion of the relation of periodic fires to the native 
trees. Such fires are held to have exerted a selective effect on the forest growth, 
due to the degree of resistance to fire possessed by different trees. In this ability, 
again, the redwood surpasses all others. For unnumbered centuries it was the 
custom of the Californian Indians periodically to burn over the country, 4 habit 
which appears to have been universal among the aborigines, from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. References to it are frequent in the accounts of early settlers and 
explorers. Perhaps the earliest is that'of THomas Morton, in ‘‘New English 
Canaan,” published in 1637, where he describes such a custom among the Indians 
of Massachusetts, and the passage is worth quoting. ‘‘The salvages,” he writes, 
“are accustomed to set fire to the country in all places where they come, and to 
t JEPSON, WILLIs Linn, The trees of California. pp. 228. photogravures 34. Hex 4 . 
jigs. 91.’ San Francisco: Cunningham, Curtis, and Welch. 1910. : 
462 
