per forests every winter, the lightning strikes a single tree here and
there, while avalanches mow down thousands at a swoop as a gardener
trims out a bed of flowers. But the winds go to every tree, fingering
every leaf and branch and furrowed hole; not one is forgotten: the
Mountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttresses
of the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the
dells--they seek and find them all, caressing them tenderly, bending
them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or
limb as required, or removing an entire tree or grove, now whispering
and cooing through the branches like a sleepy child, now roaring like
the ocean; the winds blessing the forests, the forests the winds, with
ineffable beauty and harmony as the sure result.

After one has seen pines six feet in diameter bending like grasses
before a mountain gale, and ever and anon some giant falling with a
crash that shakes the hills, it seems astonishing that any, save the
lowest thick-set trees, could ever have found a period sufficiently
stormless to establish themselves; or once established, that they should
not sooner or later have been blown down. But when the storm is over,
and we behold the same forests tranquil again, towering fresh and
unscathed in erect majesty, and consider what centuries of storms have
fallen upon them since they were first planted: hail, to break the
tender seedlings; lightning, to scorch and shatter; snow, winds, and
avalanches, to crush and overwhelm,--while the manifest result of all
this wild storm-culture is the glorious perfection we behold: then faith
in Nature's forestry is established, and we cease to deplore the
violence of her most destructive gales, or of any other storm implement
whatsoever.

There are two trees in the Sierra forests that are never blown down, so
long as they continue in sound health. These are the Juniper and the
Dwarf Pine of the summit peaks. Their stiff, crooked roots grip the
storm-beaten ledges like eagles' claws; while their lithe, cord-like
branches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds,
however violent. The other alpine conifers--the Needle Pine, Mountain
Pine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce--are never thinned out by this
agent to any destructive extent, on account of their admirable toughness
and the closeness of their growth. In general the same is true of the
giants of the lower zones. The kin