r fifteen dollars apiece, and with these hundreds of acres were
stirred as easily as if the land had been under cultivation for years,
tough, perennial roots being almost wholly absent. Thus a ranch was
established, and from these bare wooden huts, as centers of desolation,
the wild flora vanished in ever-widening circles. But the arch
destroyers are the shepherds, with their flocks of hoofed locusts,
sweeping over the ground like a fire, and trampling down every rod that
escapes the plow as completely as if the whole plain were a cottage
garden-plot without a fence. But notwithstanding these destroyers, a
thousand swarms of bees may be pastured here for every one now gathering
honey. The greater portion is still covered every season with a
repressed growth of bee-flowers, for most of the species are annuals,
and many of them are not relished by sheep or cattle, while the rapidity
of their growth enables them to develop and mature their seeds before
any foot has time to crush them. The ground is, therefore, kept sweet,
and the race is perpetuated, though only as a suggestive shadow of the
magnificence of its wildness.

The time will undoubtedly come when the entire area of this noble valley
will be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of the
mountains, now flowing to the sea, will be distributed to every acre,
giving rise to prosperous towns, wealth, arts, etc. Then, I suppose,
there will be few left, even among botanists, to deplore the vanished
primeval flora. In the mean time, the pure waste going on--the wanton
destruction of the innocents--is a sad sight to see, and the sun may
well be pitied in being compelled to look on.

The bee-pastures of the Coast Ranges last longer and are more varied
than those of the great plain, on account of differences of soil and
climate, moisture, and shade, etc. Some of the mountains are upward of
4000 feet in height, and small streams, springs, oozy bogs, etc., occur
in great abundance and variety in the wooded regions, while open parks,
flooded with sunshine, and hill-girt valleys lying at different
elevations, each with its own peculiar climate and exposure, possess the
required conditions for the development of species and families of
plants widely varied.

Next the plain there is, first, a series of smooth hills, planted with a
rich and showy vegetation that differs but little from that of the plain
itself--as if the edge of the plain had been lifted and bent into