TIMBER. 11 



Ashland Butte and other high points in the Siskiyous. Engelmann 

 spruce is found chiefly in draws and upper canyon bottoms and along 

 marshes, streams, and lakes at high altitudes. Western white pine 

 grows in mixture with the firs on the upper eastern and western 

 slopes of the Cascades, on the plateau, and in the higher Siskiyous. 

 Over most of the type the traveler will pass beneath a dense leaf 

 canopy, among large, clear-boled trees, with an understory of chin- 

 quapin, yew, vine maple, and other shrubby trees and a mat of ferns 

 and other plants. Humus is deep and the soil fresh to moist. Where 

 fire has destroyed the humus and killed enough trees to expose the 

 ground to the drying action of the sun, lodgepole pine replaces the 

 former stand, as on the yellow-pine type. 



Once across the plateau, and beginning the descent of the other side 

 of the range, the traveler enters the Douglas fir type. This covers a 

 large part of the west slope of the Cascades and a considerabJe area 

 in the Siskiyou Mountains at altitudes between 3,800 and 6,200 feet. 

 While not entirely absent on the east slope, it is there confined to the 

 immediate slopes of the main range and to those of the secondary 

 range between Upper Klamath Lake and the Cascades at altitudes 

 between 5,500 and 6,500 feet. In general, it occupies higher eleva- 

 tions and situations with greater precipitation and moister soil than 

 the yellow-pine type. Its lower limits often meet the upper ones of 

 yellow pine, while its upper range encroaches upon the subalpine 

 type. While Douglas fir is not as valuable as either western yellow 

 or sugar pine, its abundance on the Forest makes it almost as impor- 

 tant as the first of the two other species. On the Pacific slope as a 

 whole Douglas fir is the most important timber tree, and on the 

 Crater Forest it attains excellent development. The stand on the 

 type is never pure Douglas fir, but contains varying amounts of 

 yellow, white, sugar, and lodgepole pine, white and noble fir, western 

 hemlock, and Engelmann spruce. In many places Douglas fir far 

 outnumbers the other species, while in others white fir leads. To- 

 ward its lower limits on the west slope and in the Siskiyous the type 

 passes gradually into a stand of mixed conifers in which no one 

 species is predominant, but in which yellow and sugar pine attain 

 a better development than Douglas fir. In general on the type, 

 Douglas fir predominates between altitudes of 5,300 and 5,900 feet, 

 while below are greater quantities of the species forming the yellow- 

 pine tvpe, and above of those forming the subalpine type. 



It is in the Douglas fir type that the traveler will see the densest 

 stand of timber on the Forest. In few places has it the open aspect 

 of the yellow-pine type. Except where the heaviest stands of mature 

 timber shade the ground, there is a good undergrowth of many 

 species of shrubs.. Humus is fairly abundant, and, where fire has 

 not run over the ground for a hundred years or more, it is from 3 to 

 5 inches deep. 



