Here they grew more or
less apart in special sheets and patches of no great size, there in
broad, flowing folds hundreds of miles in length--zones of polleny
forests, zones of flowery chaparral, stream-tangles of rubus and wild
rose, sheets of golden composite, beds of violets, beds of mint, beds of
bryanthus and clover, and so on, certain species blooming somewhere all
the year round.
But of late years plows and sheep have made sad havoc in these glorious
pastures, destroying tens of thousands of the flowery acres like a fire,
and banishing many species of the best honey-plants to rocky cliffs and
fence-corners, while, on the other hand, cultivation thus far has given
no adequate compensation, at least in kind; only acres of alfalfa for
miles of the richest wild pasture, ornamental roses and honeysuckles
around cottage doors for cascades of wild roses in the dells, and small,
square orchards and orange-groves for broad mountain-belts of chaparral.
The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March,
April, and May, was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, so
marvelously rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, a
distance of more than 400 miles, your foot would press about a hundred
flowers at every step.
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