waters from the barren slopes was already swollen to many times its
normal volume and was thick with sediment from the fire-scarred
region. The stream with white waters from the forest had risen just a
trifle, and there was only a slight stain visible. These noticeable
changes were produced by an hour of rain. I dipped several canfuls
from the deforested drainage fork, and after each had stood half a
minute the water was poured off. The average quantity of sediment
remaining was one fifth of a canful, while the white water from the
forested slope deposited only a thin layer on the bottom of the can.
It was evident that the forest was absorbing and delaying the water
clinging to its soil and sediment. In fact, both streams carried so
much suggestive and alluring news concerning storm effects on the
slopes above that I determined to hasten on in order to climb over and
watch them while they were dashed and drenched with rain.
[Illustration: AMONG THE CLOUDS
Continental Divide, near Long's Peak]
Planning to return and give more attention to the waters of both
branches at this place, I started to inspect first the forested sides.
The lower of these slopes were tilted with a twenty to twenty-five per
cent grade, and covered with a primeval Engelmann spruce forest of
tall, crowding trees, the age of which, as I had learned during
previous visits, was only a few years less than two centuries.
The forest floor was covered with a thick carpet of litter,--one which
the years had woven out of the wreckage of limbs and leaves. This,
though loosely, coarsely woven, has a firm feeling when trodden during
dry weather. To-day however, the forest floor seemed recently
upholstered. It is absorbent; hence the water had filled the
interstices and given elasticity. I cleared away some of this litter
and found that it had an average depth of fifteen inches. The upper
third lay loosely, but below it the weave was more compact and much
finer than that on or near the surface. I judged that two inches of
rain had fallen and had soaked to an average depth of eight inches. It
was interesting to watch the water ooze from the broken walls of this
litter, or humus, on the upper sides of the holes which I dug down
into it. One of these was close to a bare, tilted slope of granite. As
I stood watching the water slowly dripping from the broken humus and
rapidly racing down the rocks, the thought came to me that, with the
same difference in speed, the run-off from the deforested land might
be breaking through the levees at New Orleans before the water from
these woods escaped and got down as far as the sawmill.
The forest might well proclaim: "As long as I stand, my countless
roots shall clutch and clasp the soil like eagles' claws and hold it
on these slopes. I shall add to this soil by annually creating more. I
shall heave it with my growing roots, loosen and cover it with litter
rugs, and maintain a porous, sievelike surface that will catch the
rain and so delay and distribute these waters that at the foot of my
slope perennial springs will ever flow quietly toward the sea. Destroy
me, and on stormy days the waters may wash away the unanchored soil as
they run unresisted down the slopes, to form a black, destructive
flood in the home-dotted valley below."
The summit of the forested slope was comparatively smooth where I
gained it, and contained a few small, ragged-edged, grassy spaces
among its spruces and firs. The wind was blowing and the low clouds
pressed, hurried along the ground, whirled through the grassy places,
and were driven and dragged swiftly among the trees. I was in the
lower margin of cloud, and it was like a wet, gray night. Nothing
could be seen clearly, even at a few feet, and every breath I took was
like swallowing a saturated sponge.
These conditions did not last long, for a wind-surge completely rent
the clouds and gave me a glimpse of the blue, sun-filled sky. I
hurried along the ascending trend of the ridge, hoping to get above
the clouds, but they kept rising, and after I had traveled half a mile
or more I gave it up. Presently I was impressed with the height of an
exceptionally tall spruce that stood in the centre of a group of its
companions. At once I decided to climb it and have a look over the
country and cloud from its swaying top.
When half way up, the swift manner in which the tree was tracing
seismographic lines through the air awakened my interest in the trunk
that was holding me. Was it sound or not? At the foot appearances gave
it good standing. The exercising action of ordinary winds probably
toughens the wood fibres of young trees, but this one was no longer
young, and the wind was high. I held an ear against the trunk and
heard a humming whisper which told only of soundness. A blow with
broad side of my belt axe told me that it rang true and would stand
the storm and myself.
The sound brought a spectator from a spruce with broken top that stood
almost within touching distance of me. In this tree was a squirrel
home, and my axe had brought the owner from his hole. What an angry,
comic midget he was, this Frémont squirrel! With fierce whiskers and a
rattling, choppy, jerky chatter, he came out on a dead limb that
pointed toward me, and made a rush as though to annihilate me or to
cause me to take hurried flight; but as I held on he found himself
more "up in the air" than I was. He stopped short, shut off his
chatter, and held himself at close range facing me, a picture of
furious study. This scene occurred in a brief period that was
undisturbed by either wind or rain. We had a good look at each other.
He was every inch alive, but for a second or two both his place and
expression were fixed. He sat with eyes full of telling wonder and
with face that showed intense curiosity. A dash of wind and rain ended
our interview, for after his explosive introduction neither of us had
uttered a sound. He fled into his hole, and from this a moment later
thrust forth his head; but presently he subsided and withdrew. As I
began to climb again, I heard muffled expletives from within his tree
that sounded plainly like "Fool, fool, fool!"
The wind had tried hard to dislodge me, but, seated on the small limbs
and astride the slender top, I held on. The tree shook and danced;
splendidly we charged, circled, looped, and angled; such wild,
exhilarating joy I have not elsewhere experienced. At all times I
could feel in the trunk a subdued quiver or vibration, and I half
believe that a tree's greatest joys are the dances it takes with the
winds.
Conditions changed while I rocked there; the clouds rose, the wind
calmed, and the rain ceased to fall. Thunder occasionally rumbled, but
I was completely unprepared for the blinding flash and explosive crash
of the bolt that came. The violent concussion, the wave of air which
spread from it like an enormous, invisible breaker, almost knocked me
over. A tall fir that stood within fifty feet of me was struck, the
top whirled off, and the trunk split in rails to the ground. I quickly
went back to earth, for I was eager to see the full effect of the
lightning's stroke on that tall, slender evergreen cone. With one
wild, mighty stroke, in a second or less, the century-old tree tower
was wrecked.
Leaving this centenarian, I climbed up the incline a few hundred feet
higher and started out through the woods to the deforested side.
Though it was the last week in June, it was not long before I was
hampered with snow. Ragged patches, about six feet deep, covered more
than half of the forest floor. This was melting rapidly and was
"rotten" from the rain, so that I quickly gave up the difficult task
of fording it and made an abrupt descent until below the snow-line,
where I again headed for the fire-cleared slopes.
As I was leaving the wood, the storm seemed to begin all over again.
The rain at first fell steadily, but soon slackened, and the lower
cloud-margins began to drift through the woods. Just before reaching
the barrens I paused to breathe in a place where the trees were well
spaced, and found myself facing a large one with deeply furrowed bark
and limbs plentifully covered with short, fat, blunt needles. I was at
first puzzled to know what kind it was, but at last I recognized it as
a Douglas fir or "Oregon pine." I had never before seen this species
at so great an altitude,--approximately ten thousand feet. It was a
long distance from home, but it stood so contentedly in the quiet rain
that I half expected to hear it remark, "The traditions of my family
are mostly associated with gray, growing days of this kind."
Out on the barren slopes the few widely scattered, fire-killed,
fire-preserved trees with broken arms stood partly concealed and
lonely in the mists. After zigzagging for a time over the ruins, I
concluded to go at once to the uppermost side and thence down to the
forks. But the rain was again falling, and the clouds were so low and
heavy that the standing skeleton trees could not be seen unless one
was within touching distance. There was no wind or lightning, only a
warm, steady rain. It was, in fact, so comfortable that I sat down to
enjoy it until a slackening should enable me better to see the things
I most wanted to observe.
There was no snow about, and three weeks before at the same place I
had found only one small drift which was shielded and half-covered
with shelving rock. The dry Western air is insatiable and absorbs
enormous quantities of water, and, as the Indians say, "eats snow."
The snowless area about me was on a similar slope and at about the
same altitude as the snow-filled woods, so the forest is evidently an
effective check upon the ravenous winds.
Now the rain almost ceased, and I began to descend. The upper gentle
slopes were completely covered with a filmy sheet of clear water which
separated into tattered torrents and took on color. These united and
grew in size as they progressed from the top, and each was separated
from its companions by ridges that widened and gulches that deepened
as down the sides they went. The waters carried most of the eroded
material away, but here and there, where they crossed a comparatively
level stretch, small deposits of gravel were made or sandbars and
deltas formed.
Occasionally I saw miniature landslides, and, hoping for a larger one
to move, I hurried downward. Knowing that the soil is often deep at
the foot of crags on account of contributions from above, together
with the protection from erosion which the cliffs gave, I endeavored
to find such a place. While searching, I had occasion to jump from a
lower ledge on a cliff to the deposit below. The distance to the slope
and its real pitch were minimized by the mists. After shooting through
the air for at least thrice the supposed distance to the slope, I
struck heavily and loosened several rods of a landslide. I tumbled off
the back of it, but not before its rock points had made some
impressions.
I sought safety and a place of lookout on a crag, and picked bits of
granite gravel from my anatomy. Presently I heard a muffled creaking,
and looked up to see a gigantic landslide starting. At first it moved
slowly, seemed to hesitate, then slid faster, with its stone-filled
front edge here and there doubling and rolling under; finally the
entire mass broke into yawning, ragged fissures as it shot forward and
plunged over a cliff. Waiting until most of the straggling, detached
riffraff had followed, I hastened to examine the place just evacuated.
In getting down I disturbed a ground-hog from his rock point, and
found that he was in the same attitude and position I had seen him
holding just before the slide started, so that the exhibition had
merely caused him to move his eyes a little.
In the cracks and crevices of the glaciated rock-slope from which this
mass had slid, there were broken, half-decayed roots and numerous
marks which showed where other roots had held. It seems probable that
if the grove which sustained them had not been destroyed by fire, they
in turn would have anchored and held securely the portion of land
which had just slipped away.
I went over the lower slopes of the burned area and had a look at
numerous new-made gullies, and near the forks I measured a large one.
It was more than a hundred feet long, two to four feet wide, and, over
the greater part of its length, more than four feet deep. It was
eroded by the late downpour, and its misplaced material, after being
deposited by the waters, would of itself almost call for an increase
of the river and harbor appropriations.
Late in the afternoon, with the storm breaking, I stopped and watched
the largest torrent from the devastated region pour over a cliff. This
waterfall more nearly represented a liquefied landslide, for it was
burdened with sediment and spoils. As it rushed wildly over, it
carried enormous quantities of dirt, gravel, and other earthy
wreckage, and some of the stones were as large as a man's hat. Now and
then there was a slackening, but these momentary subsidences were
followed by explosive outpourings with which mingled large pieces of
charred or half-decayed wood, sometimes closely pursued by a small
boulder or some rock-fragments. Surely, these deforested slopes were
heavy contributors to the millions of tons of undesirable matter that
annually went in to fill the channel and vex the current of the
Mississippi!
These demonstrations brought to mind a remark of an army engineer to
the effect that the "Western forest fires had resulted in filling the
Missouri River channel full of dissolved Rocky Mountains." The action
of the water on this single burned area suggested that ten thousand
other fireswept heights must be rapidly diminishing. At all events, it
is evident that, unless this erosion is stopped, boats before long
will hardly find room to enter the Mississippi. It now became easier
to account for the mud-filled channel of the great river, and also for
the innumerable bars that display their broad backs above its
shallow, sluggish water. Every smooth or fluted fill in this great
stream tells of a ragged gulch or a roughened, soilless place
somewhere on a slope at one of its sources.
What a mingling of matter makes up the mud of the Mississippi,--a soil
mixture from twenty States, the blended richness of ten thousand
slopes! Coming up the "Father of Waters," and noting its obstructions
of sediment and sand, its embarrassment of misplaced material, its
dumps and deposits of soil,--monumental ruins of wasted
resources,--one may say, "Here lies the lineal descendant of Pike's
Peak; here the greater part of an Ohio hill"; or, "A flood took this
from a terraced cotton-field, and this from a farm in sunny
Tennessee." A mud flat itself might remark, "The thoughtless lumberman
who caused my downfall is now in Congress urging river improvement";
and the shallow waters at the big bend could add, "Our once deep
channel was filled with soil from a fire-scourged mountain. The
minister whose vacation fire caused this ruin is now a militant
missionary among the heathen of Cherry Blossom land."
Wondering if the ouzel's boulder had been rolled away, or if the deep
hole above it, where the mill men caught trout, had been filled with
wash, I decided to go at once and see, and then return for a final
look about the forks. Yes, the boulder was missing, apparently buried,
for the hole was earth-filled and the trout gone. So it was evident
that forests were helpful even to the fish in the streams. I took off
my hat to the trees and started back to the junction. On the way I
resolved to tell the men in the mill that a tree is the most useful
thing that grows, and that floods may be checked by forests.
The storm was over and the clouds were retreating. On a fallen log
that lay across the main stream I lingered and watched the dark and
white waters mingle. The white stream was slowly rising, while the
dark one was rapidly falling. In a few days the one from the barren
slopes would be hardly alive, while the other from among the trees
would be singing a song full of strength as it swept on toward the
sea.
[Illustration: FULL STREAMS]
The forest-born stream is the useful and beautiful one. It has a
steady flow of clear water, and fishermen cheerfully come to its
green, mossy banks. The buildings along its course are safe from
floods, and are steadily served with the power of its reliable flow;
its channel is free from mud and full of water; it allows the busy
boats of commerce freely to come and go; in countless ways it serves
the activities of man. It never causes damage, and always enriches and
gladdens the valley through which it flows on to the sea.
A song roused me from my revery. The sky was almost clear, and the
long, ragged shadows of the nearest peaks streamed far toward the
east. Not a breath of air stirred. Far away a hermit thrush was
singing, while a thousand spruces stood and listened. In the midst of
this a solitaire on the top of a pine tree burst out in marvelous
melody.
The Fate of a Tree Seed
The Fate of a Tree Seed
The ripened seeds of trees are sent forth with many strange devices
and at random for the unoccupied and fertile places of the earth.
There are six hundred kinds of trees in North America, and each of
these equips its seeds in a peculiar way, that they may take advantage
of wind, gravity, water, birds, or beasts to transport them on their
home-seeking journey.
The whole seed-sowing story is a fascinating one. Blindly, often thick
as snow, the seeds go forth to seek their fortune,--to find a
rooting-place. All are in danger, many are limited as to time, and the
majority are restricted to a single effort. A few, however, have a
complex and novel equipment and with this make a long, romantic, and
sometimes an adventurous journey, colonizing at last some strange land
far from the place of their birth. Commonly, however, this journey is
brief, and usually after one short fall or flight the seed comes to
rest where it will sprout or perish. Generally it dies.
One autumn afternoon in southeastern Missouri, seated upon some
driftwood on the shallow margin of the Mississippi, I discovered a
primitive craft that was carrying a colony of adventurous tree seeds
down the mighty river. As I watched and listened, the nuts pattered
upon the fallen leaves and the Father of Waters purled and whispered
as he slipped his broad yellow-gray current almost silently to the
sea. Here and there a few broad-backed sandbars showed themselves
above the surface, as though preparing to rise up and inquire what had
become of the water.
This primitive craft was a log that drifted low and heavy, end on with
the current. It was going somewhere with a small cargo of tree seeds.
Upon a broken upraised limb of the log sat a kingfisher. As it drifted
with the current, breezes upon the wooded hill-tops decorated the
autumn air with deliberately falling leaves and floating winged seeds.
The floating log pointed straight for a sand-bar upon which other
logs and snags were stranded. I determined, when it should come
aground, to see the character of the cargo that it carried.
Now and then, as I sat there, the heavy round nuts like merry boys
came bounding and rattling down the hillside, which rose from the
water's edge. Occasionally as a nut dropped from the tree-top he
struck a limb spring board and from this made a long leap outward for
a roll down the hillside. These nuts were walnut and hickory; and like
most heavy nuts they traveled by rolling, floating, and squirrel
carriage.
One nut dropped upon a low limb, glanced far outward, and landed upon
a log, from which it bounced outward and went bouncing down the
hillside _aplunk_ into the river. Slowly it rolled this way and that
in the almost currentless water. At last it made up its mind, and,
with the almost invisible swells, commenced to float slowly toward the
floating log out in the river. By and by the current caught it,
carried it toward and round the sand-bar, to float away with the
onsweep toward the sea. This nut may have been carried a few miles or
a few hundred before it went ashore on the bank of the river or
landed upon some romantic island to sprout and grow. Seeds often are
carried by rivers and then successfully planted, after many stops and
advances, far from the parent tree.
The log hesitated as it approached the sand-bar, as if cautiously
smelling with its big, rooty nose; but at last it swung round
broadside, and sleepily allowed the current to put it to bed upon the
sand. As a tree, this log had lived on the banks of the Mississippi or
one of its tributaries, in Minnesota. While standing it had for a time
served as a woodpecker home. In one of the larger excavations made by
these birds, I found some white pine cones and other seeds from the
north that had been stored by bird or squirrel. A long voyage these
seeds had taken; they may have continued the journey, landing at last
to grow in sunny Tennessee; or they may have sunk to the bottom of the
river or even have perished in the salt waters of the Gulf.
In climbing up the steep hillside above the river, I found many nests
of hickory and walnuts against the upper side of fallen logs. Upon
the level hill-top the ground beneath the tree was thickly covered
with fallen nuts; only a few of these had got a tree's length away
from the parent. Occasionally, however, a wind-gust used a long,
slender limb as a sling, and flung the attached nuts afar.
The squirrels were active, laying up a hoard of nuts for winter. Many
a walnut, hickory, or butternut tree at some distant place may have
grown from an uneaten or forgotten nut which the squirrels carried
away.
The winged seeds are the ones that are most widely scattered. These
are grown by many kinds of trees. From May until midwinter trees of
this kind are giving their little atoms of life to the great
seed-sower, the wind. Most winged seeds have one wing for each seed
and commonly each makes but one flight. Generally the lighter the seed
and the higher the wind, the farther the seed will fly or be blown.
In May the silver maple starts the flight of winged seeds. This tree
has a seed about the size of a peanut, provided with a one-sided wing
as large as one's thumb. It sails away from the tree, settling
rapidly toward the earth with heavy end downward, whirling round and
round as it falls. Red maple seeds ripen in June, but not until autumn
does the hard maple send its winged ones forth from amid the painted
leaves.
The seed of an ash tree is like a dart. In the different ashes these
are of different lengths, but all have two-edged wings which in calm
weather dart the seed to the snowy earth; but in a lively wind they
are tumbled and whirled about while being unceremoniously carried
afar; this they do not mind, for at the first lull they right
themselves and drop in good form to the earth.
Cottonwoods and willows send forth their seeds inclosed in a dainty
puff or ball of silky cotton that is so light that the wind often
carries it long distances. With the willow this device is so airy and
dainty that it is easily entangled on twigs or grass and may never
reach the earth. The willow seed, too, is so feeble that it will often
perish inside twenty-four hours if it does not find a most favorable
germinating-place. This makes but little difference to the willows,
for they do not depend upon seeds for extension but upon the breaking
off of roots or twigs by various agencies; these pieces of roots or
twigs often are carried miles by streams, and take root perhaps at the
first place where they go around.
The seeds of the sycamore are in balls attached to the limbs by a
slender twiglet. The winter winds beat and thump these balls against
the limbs, thus causing the seeds to loosen and to drop a few at a
time to the earth. Each seed is a light little pencil which at one end
is equipped with a whorl of hairs,--a parachute which delays its fall
and thus enables the wind to carry it away from the parent tree.
The conifers--the pines, firs, and spruces--have ingeniously devised
and developed their winged seeds for wind distribution. Most of these
seeds are light, and each is attached to a dainty feather or wing
which is used on its commencement day. These wings are as handsome as
insects' wings, dainty enough for fairies; they are purple, plain
brown, and spotted, and so balanced that they revolve or whirl,
glinting in the autumn sun as they go on their adventurous wind-blown
flight to the earth. A high wind may carry them miles.
With the pines and spruces the cones open one or a few scales at a
time, so that the seeds from each cone are distributed through many
days. The firs, however, carry cones that when ripe often collapse in
the wind. The entire filling of seeds are thus dropped at once and
fill the air with flocks of merry, diving, glinting wings. A heavy
seed-crop in a coniferous forest gives a touch of poetry to the
viewless air.