Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/780

Rh 704. CALIFORNIA cisco market, and perhaps the most characteristic. They belong to the genus Sebastes, and there are several species of different colours. Smelts are abundant ; but they are not true smelts, and are inferior to them as an article of food. There are several fish of the flat-fish family, and called soles andturoot, although in no case are the species identical with tnose found on the Atlantic coast or in Euroope. The Tom-cod is abundant in the winter months, and although small, it is one of the best of the fishes of the coast. The barracouta (Sphyrcena argentea) is decidedly the best- flavoured fish found on the coast ; but it is not at all common. The oysters of the Californian coast are small ; bat foreign ones are planted in the Bay of San Francisco, where they grow rapidly. Hard-shell clams and mussels are abundant, and are eaten in considerable quantity. The haliotis called Abelone is taken in great numbers, but eaten exclusively by the Chinese. Crabs, lobsters, and shrimps, are abundant on the coast ; and they are used to some extent as food. The variety of species of the crab family is very great, and some of them are very large. Quite serious attempts have been made, under the auspices of the United States Fish Commissioner, to introduce some of the eastern fishes into Californian waters, especially the shad; but these trials have not yet led to any satisfactory results. Flora The vegetation of California has many features of interest The great extent of the State and the varied character of its surface are strongly impressed upon its flora. A great number of botanists and professional seed collectors have visited California from time to time ; but no general review of all the species has ever been made, although such a one is now in progress under the auspices of the Geological Survey. The entire number of species found in the State is estimated at about 2500. There is not so great a variety of forest-trees as would naturally have been expected ; and many of the most useful varieties are entirely wanting. The forests have, in places, and especially along the Sierra, at an elevation of from 2000 to 6000 or 7000 feet, a character of grandeur hardly surpassed in any part of the world. Many of the trees are of gigantic dimensions. Coniferous trees greatly predominate in the densely wooded portion of the State. Of the pines, the sugar pine (Pinus Lambertiana) is perhaps the finest tree, reaching occasionally 300 feet in height. Its wood is valuable for inside work, and it is much used in the Sierra, where the tree is chiefly found. This, and the Pinus Coulteri, have cones of great size. Pinus sabiniana, the digger pine or nut pine, is the characteristic tree of the foot-hills of the Sierra, where it occurs associated with the black oak (Q. sonomensis), sparsely scattered over the hill sides, and never in dense forests. This is the foot-hill arboreal vegetation, Rising a litle higher, at an elevation of 3000 to 5000 feet, the pitch pine (P. ponderosa), the sugar pine, the white or bastard cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), and the Douglas spruce (Abies Douglasii) are the predominating and characteristic trees. Still higher, the firs come in, namely the Picea grandis and the amabilis, as well as the tamarack pine (P. contorta). This belt ranges at from 7000 to 9000 feet elevation in the Sierra, through the central portion of the State. The big tree (Sequoia gigantea) belongs to the same belt as the sugar pine, Douglas spruce, and pitch pine. This tree occurs in groves or patches from latitude 36 to 38 15, nowhere descending much below 4000 feet in elevation, or rising above 7000. There are eight or nine of these patches of big trees, and by far the largest is that one which extends along the tributaries of King s and Kaweah rivers, about thirty miles N.N.E. of Visalia. This belt is probably over ten miles in length, the trees are, however, not grouped by themselves, but stand scattered among other species. The tallest big tree yet discovered measures 352 feet in height. The circumference of the largest, near the ground sometimes reaches nearly 100 feet. Many are over fifty feet in circumference, at 6 feet above the ground. One in the Calaveras Grove, which was cut down, measured 24 feet and lir inches in diameter, without the bark, at 6 feet above the ground ; this would probably have measured about 27 feet with the bark. Its age was a little less than 1300 years. As the big tree is exclusively limited to California and to the Sierra Nevada, so the only other species of the same genus, the redwood (8. sempervirens), is peculiarly a Coast Range tree. It is found chiefly in the counties north of San Francisco Bay, where it forms magnificent forests, exclusively limited to this one species. A few of these trees may be found beyond the line dividing the State from Oregon ; but this species, as well as the big tree, is peculiarly Californian. The wood, although brittle and splintery, is durable, and much used for building purposes in San Francisco. In size, this tree is very little inferior to the Sequoia gigantea. It appears that this species cannot thrive except where it is frequently visited by the ocean fogs. Another characteristic Coast Range tree is the California laurel (Tetranthera calif ornica), which has a beautifully grained wood much valued for cabinet-work. Some species of Coniferous trees occurring in the Coast Ranges are very limited in their range ; as, for instance, the well-known ornamental tree, the Pinus insignis, which is found near Monterey, and the Cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa), of which there is a magnificent grove at Cypress Point, near Carmelo Bay. The Abies bracteata is another of these trees of singularly limited distribution. The Douglas fir, or spruce, on the other hand, is spread over a vast area in California, Oregon, Washington Territory, and through the Rocky Mountains, Of shrubs, the manzanita (Arctostaphylos pungens) is a very characteristic one, being found all over the Sierra Nevada in dry places ; the California buckeye (sEscidus californica] is another low- spreading tree or shrub, abundantly distributed through the Sierra and in the coast valleys ; and another shrub, called by the Spanish the chamiso (Adenostema fasciculata), is widely scattered up and down the Sierra and Coast Ranges. The chamiso and the manzanita, with a variety of shrubby oaks and other thorny plants, when combined together in a dense and sometimes quite impenetrable undergrowth, form what is called by the Spanish a &quot; chaparral.&quot; If the chamiso occurs alone, the thicket is known as a &quot; chamisal.&quot; The oaks are very characteristic trees of the California Valley, to which they often give by their graceful grouping in isolated clumps a wonderfully park-like character. The burr oak (Q. lobata) is the most striking of these trees, growing to a great size, and having peculiar, gracefully- drooping branches. The elm, the hickory, the beech, the chestnut, and many other of the most characteristic and useful trees of the Eastern States, are entirely wanting in California. Ons valuable variety of the ash occurs, but only in limited numbers, and there is no species of maple which is suitable for use. Indeed, there is no wood on the Pacific coast from which any part of the running-gear of a good waggon can be made ; consequently there is a large importation into the State, from the Atlantic side, of timber for this and similar purposes ; while, on the other hand, the ornamental forest-trees of California are already widely spread over the world. Agriculture. The amount of land in California, which can properly be called tillable, cannot be stated with any approach to accuracy ; and the estimates would vary, according as the peculiarities of the climate, and tho possibilities of artificial irrigation, were taken into con sideration. A large part of the State consists of barren deserts or precipitous mountains, either too rough, or too