34 . TREES AND SHRUBS 



showing, and its stem is more often branched. For hedges 

 and windbreaks it is better because it has thicker heads. But 

 its tap root extends below the surface from four to six feet, 

 and it is often necessary to cut it off in digging the plants, 

 thus causing a greater percentage of loss. Of fifty-two plants 

 which I have transplanted, twenty-five per cent, of them died; 

 these plants were put in a soil where there was much more 

 alkali than that in which they naturally grow and were gen- 

 erally subjected to worse treatment than they ordinarily get; 

 hence a part of the loss may be due to these causes. 



Continued experience after this the first attempt at trans- 

 planting mentioned above have confirmed the judgment then 

 formed. The loss is usually twenty-five per cent or more up 

 to nearly fifty per cent, depending somewhat upon the amount 

 of water supplied at transplanting and during the first season. 



In the eastern side of the State the Bear Grass of that 

 region (Yucca glauca) is exceedingly common and on much 

 of the land now used as dry land farms it was necessary to 

 grub these plants out. By the residents it is considered as an 

 undesirable weed. It resembles the preceding species very 

 closely, but bears about the same relation to it that Yucca 

 baccata does to Yucca macrocarpa; that is, it is almost stem- 

 less and the panicle of flowers is shorter and much less 

 branched. Reports of the use of the leaves of this plant for 

 making coarse brooms have come to us, but we are unable to 

 give definite information on the subject at this time. 



Another somewhat closely similar species with yellowish- 

 green and still narrower leaves and much more numerous 

 filaments on the leaves occurs in the extreme northern part of 

 the State, coming in from Utah and Nevada. In the south- 

 western corner is to be found another tall, rather broad-leafed 

 species (Yucca schottu) ; which would be an interesting addi- 

 tion to a garden collection of these plants. 



Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) is a dioecious perennial with 



