200 
The principal timber cut is Pine. Spruce and Cedar are also cut and 
sold; the latter largely split for posts. The most important trees in 
the mountains are: 
Pinus Lambertiana, Sugar Pine. 
Pinus ponderosa, Pitch Pine. 
Pinus Coulteri, Nut Pine. 
Pinus Sabiniana, Digger Pine. 
Pinus Jeffreyi, Yeilow or Bull Pine. 
Pseudotsuga Douglasvi, Spruce. 
Juniperus Californica, Juniper. 
Tnbocedrus decurrens, White Cedar. 
Abies concolor, Silver Fir. 
Quercus chrysolepis, Red Live Oak. 
Quercus Kelloggii, White Oak. 
The timber is said by the lumbermen to be softer and less valuable 
than that farther north. The low foot-hills near the coast are generally 
devoid of trees or shrubs. Those on the desert are absolutely bare. 
With these exceptions, all the foot-hills and mountains not covered with 
trees are more or less thickened with evergreen bushes, called, collect- 
ively, chaparral. These grow from 3 to 15 feet in height and are fre- 
quently almost impenetrable. This chaparral is composed principally 
of Scrub Oaks, Manzanita, Wild Lilac, Grease-wood, and Sumac. On 
the lower foot-hills this brush is cut and grubbed up for fire-wood. In 
the mountains and canyons it furnishes food for the bees, and, most im- 
portant of all, it acts as a reservoir, in allowing the rains of the wet 
season time to seep into the soil and rock veins, to appear again in the 
dry season as springs in the low country. This brush, together with 
the trees, also protects the country from the formation of destructive 
torrents and floods, and modifies the desert winds, which are already 
somewhat detrimental, at times, to vegetation. 
These brush lands almost all belong to the Government, and, being of 
little direct value, will probably long remain its property. Ty ery year 
disastrous fires sweep off great areas of this mountain covering. The 
Government sets no watch and takes no heed of its property, and the 
fires run into and destroy the timber as wellasthe brush. Every year, 
as a consequence, water-rights are decreased in value, through the 
springs diminishing in summer, and torrents run more violently and 
bring down more sand and stones to scatter on the farms. The floods 
each wet year are more destructive than before. Lately, floods have - 
swept away twenty-two houses in Los Angeles, and interrupted travel 
for weeks on the Southern Pacific Railroad, in the Soledad Canyon, and 
for months on the California Southern road, in the Temecula Canyon. 
On each of these water-sheds extensive destruction of trees and brush 
had taken place in the Soledad by deliberately set and deliberately re- 
peated fires. 
It is very important that steps should be taken to preserve these 

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