A LONGITUDINAL JOURNEY THROUGH CHILE 



257 



Photograph from Harriet Chalmei 

 A CHILEAN RANCHER IS A KING IN HIS OWN DOMAIN 



Adams 



His great country-house, where scores of town guests are often entertained at week-ends, is 

 set in the shade of Lombardy poplars, well back from the road. 



them out on their backs from the depths 

 of the dripping forest. 



Of Chilean trees, I like best the Arau- 

 caria pine, with its tall, branchless trunk 

 and umbrella-like top. ' It has a relative 

 in Brazil and Paraguay. The Mapuches 

 gather the seeds from its cones. 



"Why do you import so much Douglas 

 fir from America, when you have such 

 splendid forests?" I asked a Chilean fel- 

 low-traveler. He launched into a dis- 

 course on the wonders of the Chilean 

 forest. 



"We do produce lumber," he said, "lots 

 of it, almost half of what is used in the 

 country. That pile we just passed was 

 'lingue,' used for furniture. Those gigan- 

 tic pines are 'alerce.' Some grow 120 feet 

 high and 15 feet in diameter. It's about 

 the largest pine in the Americas ! . . . 

 That big tree is the 'coihue.' Its wood 

 can be used for paper-making, and there 

 are millions of them in the forest." 



The copihuc, national flower of Chile, 

 glorifies the woods. It is the bell-shaped 

 bloom of a vine which festoons the trees — 



