[Illustration: A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS. (AFTER A SKETCH
BY THE AUTHOR.)]
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 thickset 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.
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