136 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



breast nor garland twig from his honored brow, or none that 

 would leave any habitation at all behind ; they stand, indeed, 

 in the first rank of shelter trees. Of him may we well say as 

 the poet sang : 



"How doth his patient strength the rude harsh wind 

 Persuade to seem glad breaths of Summer breeze." 



The timber is strong, tough, and very hard, withstands 

 exposure and friction well, is used for wire-cable rollers of 

 steam elevator-cars, and where divers mechanical uses require 

 the best combined qualities; yet people from abroad are wont 

 to report that "a passable wagon wheel cannot be made of 

 California wood, nor a really good one in Oregon." Reechoed 

 assertions like these are, among those hasty conclusions, 

 we hope to show, not warranted by either careful inquiry 

 or personal observation. Most likely the complaint does not 

 originate from wood on the spleen, or we should be hopeless; 

 only a trivial overweening weakness, but nevertheless it re- 

 minds us of the wagon-trials of a wealthy planter- of Newton 

 Count}', Georgia, who kept his teams hauling all the year 

 round from Augusta, to and fro, and was greatly annoyed at 

 the sun-cracking and general failure to answer his purpose of 

 various celebrated eastern and northern timbers. In a fit of 

 desperation he betook to his own woods, cut a Water Oak 

 (Q. aquatica), reputed among the poorest oaks, treated it ac- 

 cording to his own ideas of fairness, i. e., cutting in dormant 

 state of sap, etc., thorough water-soaking and subsequent slow 

 seasoning; in short, had his own running-gear made and 

 put on the line of summer and winter hauling, and it lasted 

 over thirty years. Duly to appreciate such a test one should 

 be acquainted with the red and black mire and clay roads 

 of that section, the like of which are rarehy seen on this 

 earth. Hearing of this we took particular pains to go and 

 see him personally, and obtained a section of the felloe, 

 which we brought to California and presented to the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences. Were not similar sweeping remarks rife on 

 native fuels, it would be needless to say this oak makes first 

 class firewood. 



Rarely, a fungus (a Daedalus) has been known to attack this 

 all-abounding, healthy, Highland Live Oak, entering scars 

 where limbs are cut away, or natural knots in process of 

 growth, not duly closed over; mycelium following the heart- 

 fibres to those of the trunk and thence spreading up and 

 down, making owl and squirrel-hollows ; yet from great vital 

 resistance the progress is slow, long remaining local ; but for 

 lasting and important purposes such tainted timber should 

 be avoided. 



The shrubby variety (frutescens) is common on the coast, 



