22, CHAPARRAL. 
destructive.” I, myself, am exactly in this situation now. I have permanent 
grass and water for ten times the cattle I now run, providing the cattle could 
get at the grass and could be kept gentle at reasonable expense. I know, from 
experiences of 18938, that if the chaparral is burned the floods which follow will 
tear the pasture all to pieces, and that the grass, though more accessible, will 
be less in quantity. This grass, however, becomes almost useless because the 
permanent water supply is gone. 
VERTICAL RANGE OF CHAPARRAL. 
While it is true that the typical chaparral lies in a belt below the 
timber and above the sage-brush plains, the elevations vary with 
latitude and exposure. In some places the chaparral extends to sea 
level and in others reaches an altitude of 8,000 feet. This entire 
range will, for the purpose of this report, be considered as the 
chapparal zone. Figure 1, prepared from notes by the author and 
from a large collection of other data, gives a profile of the forest 
zones on the Pacific coast. The range of Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga 
lS en ee owe oon, 
= [os 




SS So) sso rae 
ELEVATION 
-——— = — 
SUB-TROPICAL 
past EXICg — 
Fie. 1.—Forest zones of the Pacific slope. 
taxifolia, is shown, since this tree 1s very important in the North- 
west. The most southerly point in the United States at which the 
alpine zone exists is on the summit of San Jacinto Peak, at the 
northern end of the Cleveland National Forest. The zone here ex- 
tends from 10,000 feet to the summit, or to 10,805 feet. It should be 
remembered that the chaparral extends into the redwood and even 
into the yellow pine zones, although on the diagram the names 
given to the different zones are of trees which, in an important 
locality, dominate it. This tree may be absent in some parts of the 
zone, but the type of forest recognized by foresters remains virtually 
the same. 
The very irregular division line between the chaparral and the red- 
wood and yellow pine forests evidences the struggle between forest 
and chapparal for possession of the soil. The trees have been quick 
to seize any area which favors them against their competitors. 
The following table gives the extreme vertical range of the most 
important chaparral species observed : 
