12 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. 
Section 7. TIMBER. 
The country immediately along the line of survey is sparse of timber. The varieties are 
limited, and localities few. Sycamore, cotton-wood, and small willows are found fringing the 
watercourses. Upon the plains and side slopes of valleys are found oaks in occasional 
clumps, and isolated trees, giving to the landscape the appearance of an old settled country 
where the woodman’s axe has spared just a sufficiency for the purposes of fuel, and shade for the 
grazing herds. The wood is very brash, and, excepting the pine of the mountains, is unfit to 
be used in construction. The red wood is found in the Santa Cruz mountain, and the long 
leafed pine on the Gravilan ridge and mountains back of Monterey. In the vicinity of Santa 
Margarita, near the head of the Salinas, the pine is abundant, also in the mountains at the head 
of the Santa Maria to the south of the Cuyama plain. This latter locality is, however, difficult 
of access. Besides these the supply is very limited. In the vicinity of Santa Barbara the 
mountain slopes are generally bare of trees, oaks and sycamores only are found in the protected 
gorges and valleys. Tradition states that the timber used in the construction of the mission of 
Santa Barbara was drawn from the San Rafael mountains, northeast of Santa Inez, at least forty 
miles distant. Travelling in the mountain districts of California is rendered very trying by the 
frequency with which one encounters patches of dense masses of shrubbery known as the chemizal. 
This term is applied to that growth covering whole mountain slopes and summits, and is made 
up of many varieties of shrubs, chiefly dwarfish oak, manzanita, and a shrub called red wood. It 
seldom exceeds ten feet in height, and from the toughness of the wood and density of the growth 
it is often impracticable to penetrate these thickets without free use of the axe. 
