76 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



esteemed ; and, as the root-knees are most of all valuable, it 

 should only be selected and cut by the ship and wheelwright 

 themselves; or one practiced in the art of selecting with 

 judgment. Choice cuts of this timber are worth, at least, 

 five dollars a foot— indeed invaluable. Let us still hope, 

 forlorn as it may be, that by continually calling attention to 

 this tree, as we have done, now, for more than a quarter of 

 a century, somebody may yet be found to duly respect their 

 own best interests and the public good. Not that we sup- 

 pose for a moment that anything we > could say, in one case 

 of a thousand, would inspire a mustard seed of faith ; no, 

 nor even an angel flying in the midst of heaven, crying 

 " Woodman, spare that tree," would suffice to stay the up- 

 lifted hand of a short-sighted greed. Nevertheless were 

 benighted ignorance ten-fold linked to avarice, and doubly 

 dull, will we ever cease to protest against a reckless vandal- 

 ism ; and though this generation "fear not God, nor regard 

 man," other peoples may perchance cherish the choice seed 

 and go to perpetuate the noble and supereminently useful 

 Golden Oak, as a tree worthy to flourish when the Golden 

 State of its nativity was no more, or only known as a watch 

 in the night, or from the future historian, as a tale that is 

 told. In short, this oak is far superior to White Oak in 

 every way for spokes, axles, tongues, and reaches, bolsters, 

 and braces, and all farming implements and machinery ; 

 the wood is often white enough, and finely compact and 

 ivory-like for inlaying, etc. 



Hitherto we have purposely avoided any particular refer- 

 ence to varieties, lest our attention be diverted from the 

 main object in view, viz: that of calling special attention to 

 the typical tree — the one best known, most eminently useful, 

 and available for practical purposes. 



The upland and open foothill form has little or no yellow 

 fuscoid down on the leaves, but is pale bluish tinted below, 

 and otherwise the foliage is darker, duller green, thinner 

 canopied, but quite evenly distributed ; in general outline 

 the trees more symmetrically tent-topped, even veterans of 

 fullest age seldom become picturesque in any decrepid sense, 

 as they are never broken down by high winds; rarely, if ever, 

 known to exhibit any of the venerable infirmities of age, for 

 which reason the landscape painter might not choose them 

 as favorites of his pencil. Seen from beneath their magnan- 

 imous spread, we behold a naked, clean, beautifully braced 

 serial dome, that reminds one of a vast umbrella; this results 

 mainly from the leafage being on uniformly vigorous twigs, 

 and mostly confined to the upper and outer surface of prox- 

 imate final sprays, and to the leaves themselves, having very 

 short stems, yet the very last twigs are not altogether unilat- 

 erally distributed, but they close up, and so cluster without 



