Where Has Nature Spread the Forest? 99 



ments. The most important varieties are the wahiut, 

 hickory, chestnut, beech, maple, ash, oak, ehn, locust, and 

 linden. 



There are not many broad-leaved trees in the forests of 

 the West. The children of the West miss aU the nut trees 

 that the boys and girls of the East enjoy. But to make up 

 for this lack there are some in the West that are not found 

 in the East. , The sugar pine, the pinon pine, and the digger 

 pine afford deHcious nuts which once formed an important 

 article of food for the Indians. In the West the broad- 

 leaved trees do not form dense forests. They are scattered 

 among the pines on the lower moimtain slopes, in the val- 

 leys, and along the streams. The most important of these 

 trees are oaks of many kinds, soft maple, alder, cottonwood, 

 sycamore, and laurel. 



The dense forests of the Western mountains consist al- 

 most wholly of narrow-leaved trees. Among them are the 

 pines and firs of different kinds, spruce, cedar, redwood, 

 and "big trees." The redwoods and "big trees" are both 

 known as sequoias ; they grow to an immense size upon the 

 mountains of California. The coniferous forests of which 

 these trees form a part are among the most wonderful and 

 interesting ones on the earth. 



If you win take a forest map of our country and place it 

 beside a rainfall map, you will quickly discover why the 

 forests are found where they are. You will see that the 

 forests are found where there is more than thirty inches 

 of rain each year, except in the far North, where it is very 

 cold. You can say, then, that the climate is the chief thing 

 that determines where the forests shall grow. 



If the climate is warm and the rainfall heavy, the forest 



