ROCKY MOUNTAIN EVERGREENS. 8? 



al Park. I was much Impressed with these fees, for they pack 

 an Immense amount of lumber on an acre. It Is fascinating to 

 read the history of a. forest. It is all plainly written. About 

 150 years ago there was a beautiful grove packed thick with 

 the straightest trees. The lightning struck one of them. Some- 

 way, the flames crept up a tree and the resinous foliage was set 

 on fire, and great billows of flame went roaring over the tree 

 tops, and lo, the whole mass was charred, blackened and kill- 

 ed. But the intense heat had opened the cones, and out popped 

 the seeds into the leaf mould below. The parent trees were 

 standing, but a forest of young trees immediately sprang up so 

 dense and vigorous you could hardly go through them. Then 

 commenced the struggle for existence. Of course, there was 

 not room for all. Nine-tenths of them must die. But the ef- 

 fort to live seems almost human. Finally a chosen few have 

 the advantage. Perhaps the leaf mould where they fell was 

 deeper. Perhaps a rotten log was feeding them. Little by lit- 

 tle a few overtop the rest. And now begins a race for life. 

 The over-shadowed trees cannot carry bulk, but they must 

 get up into the air and light. They drop all needless baggage for 

 the race, no matter about the size. Up must go the slender 

 stem holding the tuft of green, or the tree must die. The 

 struggle goes on for years, and then that tree with 90 others 

 must succumb to the more vigorous 10 who assert their su- 

 premacy, and reach out their roots and consume the food 

 which belongs to the weaker. They have formed a trust, and 

 power and vigor prevail. And there are those dead trees, 

 sacrificed to the greed of their fellows. How much human na- 

 ture there is in trees anyway. Seventy-five years pass by and 

 one of those same arrogant trees is struck by lightning, and 

 the same process is repeated,' and now you see a forest of fall- 

 en timber so thick you can walk over the ground on the trees. 

 There is another forest standing upright, and dead, and there 

 is another of thrifty young trees, all on the same piece of 

 ground. 



It makes the heart of a dweller of the prairie ache to see 

 such a. waste of timber. There is enough to fence all the 

 prairie farms, to build all the railroads and furnish telegraph 

 posts for a great prairie state, and there they miust lie and rot 

 for it will not pay to move them. These trees have a wide 

 range. Our picture of them represents a forest in Idaho. They 

 grow in Montana, and all through the Sierras. They are trees 

 that will not be downed. They are not large. Three feet 

 through and 90 feet tall is a good size, but there are so many of 

 them, and they grow with such vigor and fight death so valiant- 

 ly, we can but admire them. They grow on good land or poor, 

 among stones or in the sand, on mountain crests or so near the 

 geysers their limbs are coated with the spray. Defiant, heroic, 

 and victorious. We would recommend them for our Northern 

 stales. The seed is somewhat difficult to gather, hut there 



