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.
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