Timberland

“ The growth of timber is universally the same on the mounds and in the surrounding forests.
Occasionally a single one is found, but they are almost invariably in groups, numbering from 3 to 10, and sometimes more. Commonly they follow the crest of the ridge, but when they occur in the bottoms or on a level bluff they are found in direct lines or in gentle curves, extending generally east and west. They exist in large numbers in almost every bottom and on nearly every bluff, on both sides of the river, throughout the entire county, as well as on its branches near the main stream. ”

“ Standing led an unhesitating way through a natural pass, and down on the other side, into shadows of a thick grove; through thickets; they splashed across a creek, a thin line of clear, cool water slipping through mountain willows, a tributary of the larger stream in the valley below. Down here it was almost dark. But twenty minutes later, climbing another slope where the larger timber stood widely spaced, they came again into the full sunshine.... Lynette began to wonder why he had left his horse so far back; how far did the silent, tireless man mean to walk? ”

“ But we come upon the little timber town at a time of transition from sequestered peace to the roar and rush of a mining boom, and if the stirring events of that time seem to change the tranquil aspect of the scene, it is only that a breeze of life from outside sweeps over its surface, as when a gust of wind, rushing from high mountains upon some quiet lake nestling at their feet, stirs the placid waters into foam. ”

“ What about that, for instance?"
"There is timber—billions of feet. There was once in Michigan. Perhaps Mr. Taylor used to think there was enough here to last forever. Perhaps he had friends who moved into the southern pineries and who are junking their mills now and getting ready to move into the Pacific Coast States. The market may slump; everything is going to slump for a time; it's natural reaction—
"But the timber is going and in New England they're sawing box wood out of pine trees that stand in fields which were cultivated at the time of the Civil War. ”

“ Here the columbine, the paintbrush, the monument-plant, and scores of other bright blossoms cheer the wild frontier.
Rarely are strangers in the mountains thoroughly aroused. They need time or explanation in order to comprehend or appreciate the larger scenes, though they do, of course, have periodic outbursts in adjectives. But at timber-line the monumental scene at once has the attention, and no explanation is needed. Timber-line tells its own stirring story of frontier experience by a forest of powerful and eloquent tree statues and bold, battered, and far-extending figures in relief. ”

“ Here lay a broad, rolling, and fertile prairie, all covered with richest vegetation and well watered in all directions. Timber had entirely disappeared, except the pretty little cotton-woods which gilded the banks of most all the little streams. Many homesteads have been taken up here, and the little sod-houses which dot the country in all directions mark the abodes of the settlers. Timber being very dear, the country is not incumbered with fences, and the dark, rich surface being as beautiful as any the sun ever shone upon, the scene, upon the whole, was truly impressive. ”

“ Are there not desolate countries enough in which to grow trees for the mere purposes of timber? Are there not soils and situations even in England, where none but timber-trees can grow? And is not the timber of many fruit-trees as useful as the timber of many of the lumber-trees which now encumber our soil? It is true, that, when wood constituted the fuel of the country, the growth of lumber-tree was essential to the comforts of the inhabitants ”

“ Here and there the eye rests upon an oasis of timber, covering a few acres, and again the traveler scans the field of vision in vain for a single tree or shrub to relieve the wearisome monotony of space. Although the soil is rich, and easy of cultivation, the extreme scarcity of timber has deterred the emigrant from its occupation, and, save a few settlements in the neighborhood of these timber-groves, La Prairie is to this day the same solitude as when the buffalo fed in its green pastures, undisturbed by the ride of the pale-faced hunter. ”

“ Timber-line the world over is a place of striking interest, but nowhere have I found or heard of a timber-line which exhibits so many telling features as does the forest-frontier on the eastern side of the Continental Divide. The prevailing tree on the drier slopes at timber-line is Pinus flexilis, the limber pine. In the moist places Engelmann spruce predominates, and in many of the moister places there are dwarfed and tangled growths of arctic willow, black birch, and aspen. ”

“ Where the tough sward of the prairie is once formed, timber will not take root. Destroy this by the plough, or by any other method, and it is soon converted into forest land. There are large tracts of country in the older settlements, where, thirty or forty years since, the farmers mowed their hay, that are now covered with a forest of young timber of rapid growth.
The fire annually sweeps over the prairies, destroying the grass and herbage, blackening the surface, and leaving a deposit of ashes to enrich the soil. ”

“ The atmosphere is salubrious, and the climate precisely such as is desirable, being about the same as that inhabited by the Indians on the east of the Mississippi. It contains much mineral coal and salt water, some lead, and some iron ore. Timber is too scarce, and this is a serious defect, but one which time will remedy, as has been demonstrated by the growth of timber in prairie countries which have been settled, where the grazing of stock, by diminishing the quantity of grass, renders the annual fires less destructive to the growth of wood. ”

“ There is indeed among the higher orders—of course with a few exceptions—a prejudice against felling Timber, older than the oldest Timber Tree in existence; and as strong as the most enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of landscape scenery can desire it to be: and so far is this feeling carried, that, by many, Timber of the most unsightly character, and in situations where it can be associated with no idea connected with the scenery, is religiously spared, and spared long after it has ceased to be either useful or ornamental where it stands. ”

“ Standing is dead it's up to you to keep on the move! As for me, I never met up with a sweeter travelling companion, nor yet with a nervier, nor yet, by God, with a lovelier! Say the word, Lynette Brooke, and we strike on together, over the ridge and deeper into the wilderness, headed for the land beyond Buck Valley, beyond Big Bear Creek. For the wild lands beyond the last holdings of the late Timber-Wolf, to be on the ground when Mexicali Joe leads Taggart and Gallup and Shipton to his gold! ”

“ Had he kept directly west, a couple of days would have carried us through the forest land, and we might then have had an easy course along the skirts of the upper prairies, to Red River; by going diagonally, we were kept for many weary days toiling through a dismal series of rugged forests.
The Cross Timber is about forty miles in breadth, and stretches over a rough country of rolling hills, covered with scattered tracts of post-oak and black-jack; with some intervening valleys, which, at proper seasons, would afford good pasturage. ”

“ About five-sixths of the country is forest land, nearly all the property of the government. These 78,000 square miles of timber are largely inaccessible on account of the numerous waterfalls and rapids of the rivers; a railway line to the remote interior is of the utmost importance. The timber and lumber trade is slight, though the greenheart, a wood of great strength, weighing 75 pounds the cubic foot, is sought for its use in the construction of docks, heavy flooring, etc. ”

“ Far beyond the long gradual lower slope lifted a range of saw-backed mountains, the sanctuary of wild goat and bear, and across the rolling lake lifted other mountains sheer from the water's edge, peaks rising above timber-line in majestic contour, their pinnacle crests grazing the clouds that scudded before the south wind. ”

“ So that but a very small portion of the country will be over ten or fifteen miles from timber; most of it in the immediate vicinity of timber. The numerous small streams which occur every five or six miles, affording most desirable locations for settlements, contain some cotton wood, alder and thorn. But timber is soon grown from sprouts. The streams everywhere run over a stony bottom, while the soil is entirely free from stone. Streams are rapid, affording the best of mill privileges. ”

“ Its valley, for a distance of more than one hundred miles from the place where it issues from the mountains, contains a considerable timber-growth, principally of cotton-wood, in skirts bordering upon the river, which occasionally embosoms islands clad in the same kind of growth. Every appearance of timber, however, is lost on a further progress eastward, and nothing is presented to variegate or adorn the prospect inland, but a broad expanse of waving prairies. ”

“ Timbo lies on a rolling plain. North of it, a lofty mountain range rises at the distance of ten or fifteen miles, and sweeps eastwardly to the horizon. The landscape, which declines from these slopes to the south, is in many places bare; yet fields of plentiful cultivation, groves of cotton-wood, tamarind and oak, thickets of shrubbery and frequent villages, stud its surface, and impart an air of rural comfort to the picturesque scene.
I soon proposed a gallop with my African kindred over the neighborhood ”

“ Every summer it eats across the plains country; every summer it does its damage on cutover lands in all the timber States. It not only destroys trees, but it takes the seed bearers and the seeds that lie ready to sprout and the life of the soil itself.
"To exist as a nation, we must have forests; to have forests all we need to do for a beginning is to give this worthless land a chance. We can speed up its work by helping—by keeping out fire, by planting trees by good forest practice. Can't you see all these Michigan plains growing pine again? ”

“ Their borders are by no means uniform. Long points of timber project into the prairies, and line the banks of the streams, and points of prairie project into the timber between these streams. In many instances are copses and groves of timber, from one hundred to two thousand acres, in the midst of prairies, like islands in the ocean. This is a common feature in the country between the Sangamon river and lake Michigan, and in the northern parts of the State. The lead mine region, both in this State and the Wisconsin territory, abounds with these groves. ”

“ Forest, or timbered Land. In general, Illinois is abundantly supplied with timber, and were it equally distributed through the State, there would be no part in want. The apparent scarcity of timber where the prairie predominates, is not so great an obstacle to the settlement of the country as has been supposed. For many of the purposes to which timber is applied, substitutes are found. ”

“ The next commoditie the land affords, is good store of Woods, & that not onely such as may be needfull for fewell, but likewise for the building of Ships, and houses, & Mils, and all manner of water-worke about which Wood is needefull. The Timber of the Countrey growes straight, and tall, some trees being twenty, some thirty foot high, before they spread forth their branches; generally the Trees be not very thicke, though there be many that will serve for Mill posts, some beeing three foote and a halfe o're. ”

“ These thickets grow up into strips of forests, which continue to extend until they reach the high table-land of the prairie; and so true is this, in fact, that we see the timber now, not only covering all the bottom-lands and hill sides, skirting the streams, but wherever a ravine or hollow extends from the low grounds up into the plain, these are filled with young timber of more recent growth. ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV. The Goldsmith Comes to Town.
Timber Town was in a state of commotion. The news of the discovery of the new gold-field had spread far and wide, and every steamer which came into the port was crowded with clammering diggers. Every boarding-house was full to overflowing, every inn was choked with men in heavy boots and corduroy trousers; the roads on the outskirts of the town were lined with rows of tents; everybody talked of the El Dorado in the mountains; there was no thought but of gold; men were buying stores in every shop ”

“ Everywhere there was food in plenty and he lived off the country as he roamed. He came at last into a land whose natural wealth staggered his imagination, the giant forests of the northwest coast. There were stretches where he might travel for weeks without once leaving the timber; and such timber! Fir, spruce and cedar side by side, each monster capable of furnishing from within its own mighty trunk the lumber for a small village. ”

“ The hills which surrounded the little town pressed so closely upon it, that by sheer weight they seemed likely to crush its frail houses into matchwood. On one side mountains, some bare and rugged, some clothed with forest, rose behind the foot-hills, and behind them more mountains, which seemed to rise like the great green billows of an angry sea. ”

“ Where the soil is too wet to sustain a heavy growth of grass, there is no prairie. Timber is found along the streams, almost invariably,—and, where the banks are high and dry, will usually be found on the east bank of those streams whose course is north and south. ”

“ The road follows the valley of the Tiber, which is bounded by low hills, descending pretty steeply towards the stream; sometimes close to the river, sometimes receding from it, and leaving a wide and fertile plain. In the first part of the way it is well cultivated, but thinly inhabited; farther on, cultivation diminishes, and ceases when we ascend an advancing and conspicuous point of these hills, and descend into the remains of the sacred wood. ”