98 
FLORA AND SVLVA 
in warm and open positions, and, where 
possible, in gritty or free soils, planting 
it as thickly as most other forest trees, 
with Larches in between and using quite 
young trees of say three years. The 
trees would then help one another in 
growth, shelter, protection, and effect. 
The Yellow Pine is one of the 
noblest of the trees that make | 
up the great Pine-forests of Western 
America, and one of which the merits i 
are still little known in this country. 
While perhaps the most variable of all 
the western Pines, it is a stately tree in 
the best conditions, growing with a nar- 
row tapering head which forms usually 
from one-half to a third of its full height. 
Grown closely in the forests as much as 
three-fourths of the entire stem is often 
bare of branches, the tall and beauti- 
fully proportioned shafts presenting a 
remarkable appearance. When well- 
grown, it is one of the most majestic of 
Pines, remarkable for its poplar-like 
head, its large needles, and the rapidity 
of its growth ; when stunted through 
unfavourable conditions, its outline be- 
comes more rounded, and less imposing. 
It not only thrives in the genial climate 
of the mountain slopes of California and 
Oregon, but also reaches far into the 
arid desert towards the east, cresting the 
mountains in the Utah region, and j 
spreading from the Colorado River far 
and wide throughout the Rocky Moun- 
tains. It stands great variations of soil 
and climate, from the moist mountain ■ 
slopes of California upwards to the 
arctic ridges and well- watered moraines 
of the higher summits, thence to the 
torrid lava-beds of the interior and the 
sun-baked "mesas" of the south, and, 
pushing boldly out where no other tree 
can exist, it forms the advance-guard 
of the great Pacific forest, and is the 
most widely- spread tree of western 
North America. It covers a vast track 
of country from N.-W. Nebraska and 
W. Texas, to the shores of the Pacific 
Ocean, and from the southern part of 
British Columbia southwards to Lower 
California and the northern parts of 
Mexico. In California it reaches its 
greatest height in the basins of fiUed-up 
lakes on the western slopes of the Sierra 
Nevada, where starting from elevations 
of nearly 2000 feet it reaches well-nigh 
to the limit of tree growth. Crossing 
the range by its lower passes it passes 
out to the hot, volcanic plains upon the 
eastern side, sweeping northwards into 
Oregon, where it extends to the moun- 
tains east of Goose Lake, covering their 
sides, save upon the highest peaks, with 
fine trees, and standing even upon the 
lava-fields of active volcanes, so near 
their very brink as to toss its cones 
among the cinders ofthe crater's mouth. 
The Great Pine In describing hisjourncy 
Forests. fj-^j^ the Pitt Rivcr to 
that of the Columbia, Dr. Newberry 
says : — 
" Near or distant, trees of this kind were 
nearly always in sight, and in the arid and 
really desert regions of the interior basin, we 
made whole days' marches in forests of Yellow 
Pine, of which the monotony was unbroken 
either by other forms of vegetation, or the 
stillness by the flutter of a bird or the hum of 
an insect. The volcanic soil, as light and dry 
as ashes, into which the feet of our horses 
sank to the fetlocks, produces hardly anything 
but an unending succession of these large 
