The Indian Who Last Undertook To Be My Guide To The Trees I Sent
Off Before Gaining My Encampment, Lest He Should Betray Me.
How
irksome is the darkness of night to one under such circumstances.
I cannot speak a word to my guide, nor have I a book to divert my
thoughts, which are continually occupied with the dread lest the
hostile Indians should trace me hither and make an attack. I now
write lying on the grass with my gun cocked beside me, and penning
these lines by the light of my Columbian candle, namely, an ignited
piece of rosin-wood.
Douglas named this magnificent species Pinus Lambertiana, in honor of
his friend Dr. Lambert, of London. This is the noblest pine thus far
discovered in the forests of the world, surpassing all others not only
in size but in beauty and majesty. Oregon may well be proud that its
discovery was made within her borders, and that, though it is far more
abundant in California, she has the largest known specimens. In the
Sierra the finest sugar pine forests lie at an elevation of about five
thousand feet. In Oregon they occupy much lower ground, some of the
trees being found but little above tide-water.
No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the sugar
pine. In most coniferous trees there is a sameness of form and
expression which at length becomes wearisome to most people who travel
far in the woods. But the sugar pines are as free from conventional
forms as any of the oaks. No two are so much alike as to hide their
individuality from any observer. Every tree is appreciated as a study
in itself and proclaims in no uncertain terms the surpassing grandeur
of the species. The branches, mostly near the summit, are sometimes
nearly forty feet long, feathered richly all around with short, leafy
branchlets, and tasseled with cones a foot and a half long. And when
these superb arms are outspread, radiating in every direction, an
immense crownlike mass is formed which, poised on the noble shaft and
filled with sunshine, is one of the grandest forest objects
conceivable. But though so wild and unconventional when full-grown,
the sugar pine is a remarkably regular tree in youth, a strict
follower of coniferous fashions, slim, erect, tapering, symmetrical,
every branch in place. At the age of fifty or sixty years this shy,
fashionable form begins to give way. Special branches are thrust out
away from the general outlines of the trees and bent down with cones.
Henceforth it becomes more and more original and independent in style,
pushes boldly aloft into the winds and sunshine, growing ever more
stately and beautiful, a joy and inspiration to every beholder.
Unfortunately, the sugar pine makes excellent lumber. It is too good
to live, and is already passing rapidly away before the woodman's axe.
Surely out of all of the abounding forest wealth of Oregon a few
specimens might be spared to the world, not as dead lumber, but as
living trees.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 126 of 159
Words from 65147 to 65660
of 82482