USA > California > Merced County > History of Merced County, California with biographical sketches of prominent citizens > Part 45
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PERIOD OF REPOSE.
Then followed a long period of comparative repose-the period when the mines were made. Large rivers were formed, and deep gorges and channels cut through the uplifted rocks. During the breaking and uplifting of the rocks, they were metamorpbosed by heat, so that the sands and beds of mud became hard rocks. In places veins and dykes were filled with the melted rock from below ; others remained open, and through these circulated hot waters containing gold, silver, copper, quartz, lime, etc., in solution. These were slowly deposited where they are now found, as quartz ledges, containing the metals. Through other breaks and fissures issued steam, bot vapors, and gases, containing the rich metals, and as these cooled or came in contact with new material, the metals were deposited as ores, or in chemical combination with other elements.
GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF YO SEMITE.
Prof. J. D. Whitney, State Geologist, is of the opinion that " the bottom of the valley sank down to an unknown depth."
Professor Silliman (Yale College) thinks that " by some great volcanic convulsion, the mountains were rent asunder and an immense fissure formed."
J. M. Hutchings thinks " it was by erosion. That the soft granite became easily acted upon by air, sunlight, moisture, and frost, and that high water created wild torrents that swept through with overwhelming force, and cut out the main valley, wbich has by the same elements been deepened and widened."
Professor John Muir says, "this and similar valleys were formed by glaciers that cut out, grooved, and rounded its mountain walls, and thus wrote the fact of their existence and mission beyond a peradventure."
GENERAL MERCHANDISE
8.SCHEEUNE
THAY & GRAPH
BLACKSMITH.
B. SCHEELINES GROCERY.
'LOS BAÑOS" MERCED CO. CAL.
H. THORNTON'S HOTEL.
RA
RES. & FERRY OF "G. W.DICKENSON, CHESTER MERCED CO. CAL.
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BOTANICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTY.
BOTANY OF MERCED COUNTY.
List of Trees, Shrubs, Plants, Flowers, Vines, etc., found in Merced County.
NEXT to climate, that feature of a country most interesting and important, is its botany. No one thing so enhances the natural attractiveness of a region as does an exuberant vege- tation; while the economic value of any section is made or marred hy the character, kind and quantity of plants. Indeed, so accurately does the native flora determine the paternal soil, the water resources, and the prevailing climate, that ahound- ing plants are a sure index of the extent to which a country can be immediately utilized for residence and industry. Tem- perature, moisture, winds and other meteorological phenomena have their records written by the earliest signal service-the size, tissue, fruit and species of vegetable forms.
TEMPERATURE CHANGES CHARACTER OF PLANTS.
The high annual temperature of the San Joaquin Valley and adjacent mountain slopes, the almost total absence of enows from the plains and the seldom occurrence of frosts make the flora peculiar in some respects and unusually interesting. Some annuals of other climates become perennials here; certain plants, growing elsewhere as shrubs, develop into trees when transplanted to the valley; a few edihle roots acquire a woody fiber in place of the usual fleshy tissue. A greater tendency to admixture, among plants of the same family growing adja- cent, seems to exist. Several fruits are much impaired in quality, while others are improved in size and flavor. Even in the case of plants confined entirely to the valley, two things, moisture and altitude, effect marked differences in quality.
On the plains when, after the winter rains, the surface ground loses all moisture, few plants survive midsummer; trees seldom grow at all on the elevated and dryer portions. In favorable places, along the streams, the tree-growth is of the most moderate sort. Somewhat ahove the foot-hill slopes, where the deeper ground retains the water of the winter rain- fall, or receives constant renewals from the melting snows or living streams, the forests are made up of trees of splendid growth, while beneath, the ground is carpeted with rich native flowering plants. The plains, however, are not, on account of the dry season, valueless for pasture or agricultural use.
All the grains yield well under proper cultivation, and many grasses and other plants, valuable for grazing, mature and ripen seeds in the earlier part of the dry season. So that,
while uncultivated fields appear, to Eastern visitors especially, to he parched and harren, they are, in truth, rich very often with seed-ladened plants and prove to he the best pasturage. Much of the seed, too, in the chaff or free, falls on the ground and hy the action of the winds gathers into such depressions as stock tracks. These small seed deposits prove to he good feeding to grateful flocks till the rains come. Here is the.mys- tery of fat stock upon lean-looking fields as remarked hy travelers.
THE THERMAL BELT.
There is a warm strata of air in the hills, a few hundred fect ahove the valleys. This semi-tropical helt varies; in some locations it is very marked, and in others it is much less so. At night, during the frosty seasons, the cold air settles in the valleys and the warm air rises. At daylight a severe frost may he seen in the valleys, heaviest along the water-courses, while in the warm helt, a few hundred feet above-in some cases not more than sixty-the most delicate flowers and shrubs are untouched. The soil on the hills has often great depth, and is admirably adapted to fruit culture. Like the valleys, the lands are covered only hy scattered groves of trees, little of it too steep for easy cultivation. It is exactly suited for semi-trop- ical fruit culture; here oranges, lemons, limes, English walnuts, almonds, and pomegranates grow well, and yield a certain crop. There are thousands of acres of this kind of land in the foot-hill valleys unoccupied.
APPARENT INVERSION OF THE SEASONS.
It is interesting, too, to recall the apparent inversion of the seasons. The Novemher frosts elsewhere lock in a fast sleep, deepened hy succeeding snows, all plant life and for all winter long; here, nature, at the bidding of the fall showers, spreads a mantle of green over the valley fields, and things live and grow most at our coldest season.
A treatment of this subject from a strictly scientific stand- point does not seem in harmony with the purpose of this work. It is therefore proposed to introduce such matter as will hring the prominent and common botanical features out to a reader ahroad. The following schedule of indigenous plants, will con- tain only those that are most common, or such as have, at least, striking and peculiar parts. It will he, in giving the useful, cultivated varieties, the aim to indicate the character of the region in an agricultural view.
CEREALS AND PASTURE PLANTS.
Aside from the large general cultivation of wheat for home use and exportation, that of corn to a limited extent, and that of oats and barley chiefly for a stock-feed, few others of the small grains are grown at all. It does not come within the
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HISTORY OF MERCED COUNTY.
proper seope of this article to introduce relative statistics and it must suffiee to indicate wheat as the predominating grain harvested. All the grains are cut at an immature stage for hay, as wheat, barley, oats (wild and tame). For the same purpose or for grazing, there are, for the most part, the clovers and numerous other native grasses.
NATIVE CLOVERS.
The native clovers found in this county and the adjacent region are about twenty in number, and alone form an inter- esting and extensive hotanieal study. There may be added to these general classes, sweet elover (Melilotus parviflora), alfalfa (Medicaio sativa), bur elover (M. denticulata), the poas, eheat (Bromus seculinus and B. malis), vetch (Vicia sativa and V. linearis), blue joint (Calamagrostis), filaria (Erodium cicutarium, E. moschatum), several varieties of set- aria, agrostis and numerous other varieties of grasses.
NATIVE FOREST TREES.
This county is not rich in the abundance or quality of the native forest trees. In making this list, it has been a question sometimes where to draw the line between trees and shrubs, as some of what might be called shrubs in less-favored elimates grow to be trees here, It would not be advisable to attempt to give a full list of these trees, and we will only give those most commonly scen and found in this and adjoining counties.
THE OAK FAMILY.
Quercus Lobata-White Oak-Differs from the Eastern white oak; grows on open spaces; tiurber useful; abundant; fifty to seventy feet high.
It, resembles the white oak of the Atlantie slope in the color of its bark and the shape of its leaves ; but its growtb is very different. It has a long acorn and is a very large tree. It seldom reaches a greater height than sixty feet and is often wider than high, sometimes measuring 125 feet from side to side. The tree furnishes no straight timber, and the wood is soft and brittle and of uo use in the arts. It is not even fit for fence rails. The tree is, however, very beautiful and majes- tie, and is an important element in those "scenes of quiet beauty which so often excite the admiration of the traveler in California." In groves it resembles the English parks. At tbe ends are branches which hang down like weeping willows. The acorns ouce formed the ebief artiele of food of the Indiaus, and are from two to two and a half inches long.
The mistletoe grows abundantly on the oak trees of Califor- nia. The Spanish moss (Evernia jubata), which hangs in long lace-like gray beards from the branches, also serves to give beauty to the groves in the valleys.
Q. Agrifolia-Live Oak, Evergreen Oak-not very abundant; forming groves ; thirty to ninety feet high,
It is a low, spreading tree, much like an apple tree in shape. The foliage is dark and dense. The acorns small, thin and sharp pointed. The wood is hard, erooked in grain and valu- able iu ship building. Some fine specimens iu Yo Semite.
Q. Crysolepis - Cañon Live Oak-A valuable timber tree, with tough fibered growth; next to the Eastern white oak. It is found in mountain valleys. The acorn is of the size and form of a small hazel-nut.
In the mountains a tougb deciduous oak is found, with wood fit for staves and wagon timber, but it is so remote from steam transportation that it has no value at present. It is said that the second growth of some of the oaks in the valley bottom is tough enough for plow beams. The eanon oak is found in most of the small valleys and eañons, as its name indieates.
Q. Densiflora-Chestnut Oak-furnishes taubark of the best quality.
It is rarely found, but is a handsome evergreen tree, with leaf like that of the chestnut. The bark is used in tanning.
Q. Fulvescens-Fulvous Oak-It is a newly discovered spe- cies. . A pretty little tree, with a broadly-spreading top, and very thiekly set with leaves, which vary much in form.
Leaves oblong, egg-shaped, and pointed, toothed or smooth and entire; teeth only on the upper half; acorns oblong, set about one-quarter of it in a thick saueer eup; very furry with a yellow rusty mealiness.
The cups, or acorns, at first look like little wheels, but finally tbe fruit becomes quite long and large. Yon see no seales to the eup, because they are covered up with a yellow fur.
The acorns make a "King-Cure-All " eoffee, highly prized by our German people; especially in scrofula of tbe very weak and delicate.
Castanopsis Chrysophylla - California Chestnut-Generally shrubby, but sometimes fifty feet high. A variety called Pumilra, stubby, on the sandy hill-sides.
Castanca Chrysophylla-The Westeru Chinquapin, or Goldeu- leaved Chestuut-Is an evergreen shrub that grows in the Sierra Nevada.
At the height of three feet it bears an edible and palatable fruit, something like the beeeh-nut in shape but larger. The flowers and ripe fruit are often found on the same bush. The leaves are dark green above, and covered with a yellowish powder beneath. The Western chinqnapin grows to be a tree thirty feet high in some parts of Oregon.
Corylus Rostrata - Hazel - Eight to ten feet high, bearing abundance of nuts.
Among mastworts, none are more useful to mankind than oaks. They have been celebrated from the earliest times for the strength of their timber, and its value as fuel. The bark is useful for dyeing, and making ink; it also arrests decay, and wonderfully preserves animal substanees ; an old stinking hide of a horse or other animal is soon tanned into leather. A strong tea enres ehafed and sore feet from walking; eleanses and heals sores, stops mortification, eures people of fits, and a thousand and one other useful things.
MAPLE FAMILY.
Esculus Californica - Buckeye, Horse Chestnut -Ten to thirty feet high. A really handsome and ornamental tree when properly trained.
It is a low, spreading tree, abundant in the valleys and foot- hills. It likes to grow about rocky ledges, in ravines and on banks of streams, The tree rarely exceeds fifteen feet in
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height, has very dense foliage and rises from the ground in a globular form. It continues to put forth large clusters of fra- grant blossoms from early spring until late in the season. The leaves are among the first to open in the spring. The nuts were a staple article of food for the Indians.
Acer Macrophyllum-Big-leaved Maple-Fifty to ninety feet high ; somewhat abundant; wood soft, but valuable.
Negundo Californicum-Box Elder-Fifty to sixty feet high.
HEATH FAMILY.
Arbutus Menziessii-A handsome tree, called " Madrona " by the Spaniards, because it resembles the strawberry tree of the Old World. One of our most attractive trees.
It is an evergreen, with an open growth, somewbat like that of a maple, bright green and lustrous leaves, and a hright red bark. Its height is sometimes fifty feet; its diameter in the trunk two feet. The leaves are oval in shape, three inches long, pea-green underneath, and dark and shining above. The bark is smooth, and it peels off at regular seasons; the new bark is a pea-green, which changes to a bright red. The wood is very hard, and is used to some extent in the arts, especially for making the wooden stirrup commonly used in the State. The tree bears a bright red berry in clusters, of which the birds are fond.
Arctostaphylos Tomentosa-Manzanita-Six to twelve feet high ; berries abundant, edible.
This is another prominent feature in the Californian forest; is a dense, clump-like shrub, which grows as high as twelve feet, and nearly as broad as it is high. The trunk divides near the ground into several or many branches, and these ter- minate in a great multitude of twigs, so that the shrub is a dense mass of branches and branehlets, all of which are very crooked. The wood is very dense, hard, and dark red in color. The bark is red and smooth, occasionally peeling off and expos- ing a new light green bark, which soon turns red. The leaves are regularly oval in form, about an inch and one-half long, thick and shining, and pea-green in color; they set vertically upon their stems. The manzanita bears a pinkish-white blos- som in clusters, and these are replaced by round red berries about half an inch in diameter, with a pleasant acidulous taste The shrub grows in the coast valleys, and in the Sierra Nevada, up near to the limit of perpetual snow. The name means "little apple," manzana being the Spanish for apple. R. Occidentale-Azalea-Ten to fifteen feet high, flowering all the year, giving fragrance and beauty to the woods; everywhere about springs.
The azaleas of California are abundant and rich in perfume; a species of calycanthus, without fragrance, is found in the eañons, and the ceanothus, or California lilac, of which there are many species, is a beautiful evergreen shrub, growing about ten feet high, with clusters of lilae-like flowers, of vari- ous shades of blue, violet, and red, according to the species. The tree produces a multitude of little twigs, and a dense foliage, and may be trimmed into almost any shape. Some beautiful white specimens are found in all the live streams of the Sierras and in Yo Semite.
HONEYSUCKLE FAMILY.
Sambucus Glauca-Elder-Grows to be quite a tree, ten to thirty feet high, and often a foot or two in diameter.
Bigelowii Arborescens-A shrub four to eight feet high, but growing with the habit of a tree, on dry hills, with pines and manzanitas.
Baccharis Piluluris-Groundsel Tree-The "California Bot- any" says, " two to four feet high; " we have it eight to ten feet high.
COMPOSITE FAMILY.
Of this very large family of plants, only one or two assume anything like the proportions of a tree.
PLANE TREE FAMILY.
Plantanus Racemosus-Sycamore or Buttonwood-In valleys bordering along streams and sloughs, fifty to one hundred feet high; wood valuable, receives a good polish; durable. It exhibits a striking resemblance to the syeamore of the Atlantic slope. It has the same irregular growth, the same white, smooth, sealy bark and yellowish leaf, but instead of having only one ball on a stem it has several, the stem running through one or two, and terminating in the last. There are some fine specimens along the rivers of this section.
CURRANT FAMILY.
Ribes Speciosum-Wild Currant-Six to ten feet high; has beautiful fuchsia-like flowers.
R. Sanguineum-Growing to be a small tree, twelve feet high; beautiful flowers.
DOGWOOD FAMILY,
Cornus Nuttallia-A small tree, twenty feet high; resembles the "Flowering Dogwood" of the East, but is more showy. It is quite common on banks of mountain streams and on head-waters of Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Mereed Rivers. C. Californica-On stream banks; ten to fifteen feet high.
BUCKTHORN FAMILY.
Rhamnus Californica-Alder Buckthorn-Ten to twenty feet high, forming thickets ; wood soft, like alder.
The fruit contains a seed like the coffee grain, hence is called "Wild Coffee," and the seeds have been used as coffee, but the plant is quite distinct from the coffee plant.
Ceanothus Thyrsiflorus-California Lilae-Six to eighteen feet high; borders of forests; wood hard, makes good fuel; flowers fragrant and handsome.
C. Papillosus-Resembles the last; not quite as large; six to ten feet high.
C. Incanus-Hardly a tree, but a large, straggling sbrub along creeks.
PULSE FAMILY.
Lupinus Arboreus-Tree Lupine -- four to ten feet high, with a variety of fragrant flowers.
ROSE FAMILY.
Prunus Ilicifolia-Wild Cherry-An evergreen, fifteen to forty feet high.
Nuttallia Cerasiformis-Oso Berry-Two to fifteen feet high.
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HISTORY OF MERCED COUNTY.
Heteromles Arbutifolia-Photinia-Four to twenty feet high, with beautiful red herries, ripening in December.
Adenostoma Fasciculatum-Chaparral, Chemissal-Eight to twenty feet bigh. Grows in dense masses on the sides of mountains.
WILLOW FAMILY.
Salix Bigelowii-Bigelow's Willow-Ten to fifty feet high; common.
S. Lævigata-Smootb Willow-A handsome tree, especially when in hloom; twenty to forty feet high.
S. Sitchensis-Sitka Willow-Has a beautiful silky leaf under- neath; near the running streams; ten to fifteen feet high; generally reclining.
S. Brachystchays-On bill-sides, where the male plant lights up the horders of openings with white, wooly catkins, early in February ; eight to twenty feet high.
Populus Monilifera-Cottonwood, Poplar-Large trees along the ereeks ; there are probably two or three species, as yet not fully decided. Among them is
Populus Balsamibera-Balm of Gilead-This can he found growing near most of tbe streame, and is quite common in tho Yo Semite and other valleye.
SUMAC FAMILY.
Rhus Diversilolba-Poison Oak-From a small shrub, tbree or four feet high, to quite a tree, twenty to thirty feet high, and six inches in diameter. A great pest on account of · its poisonous qualities.
It is sometimes called poison ivy, but is not like the eastern plant of that name. It grows abundantly in the valleys of tbe foot-hills, the coast mountains, and the Sierra, and is a prominent and important feature of the botany of the State. One of the first lessons of the new-comer in California should be to learn to distinguish and avoid this useless and dangerous plant. The touch of the leaf is poisonous, and causes a very irritating eruption of the skin. It rapidly communicates by the touch from one part of the hody to another, causing severe inflammations and swellings. Tbe most delicate parts of the hody are most affected hy the poison. The eyes are sometimes elosed up entirely hy the ewelling round them ; and many eases are recorded of faces so swollen, that they could not be recog- nized by intimate friends. Some persons are not affected by the toueb of the rhus; hut instances have occurred wherein persons supposing themselves, after long experience, to be free from danger, have at last been poisoned; and when the virus has onee taken hold, the system is always very easily affected from that time forward. Even passing to the leeward of the bush on a windy day, or going through the smoke of a fire in which it is burning, will bring the poison to the surface again. The poison oak-the leaves often resemble those of the white oak in sbape-abounds in the grounds adapted to pienics near the large towns, and many persons are affected by it on such occasions.
Many remedies are in use, hut none are regarded as a eer- tain eure. Among them are steam baths, lotions of kerosene, manzanita leaves, leaves of the wild sunflower (Grindelia), common salt, salaratus, saltpeter, bay rum, and aleohol-each being used separately-poultices of hread and milk, tbe eating of the huds of the poisonous plant, and homeopatbic rhus pills.
The poison oak thrives hest on a moist soil, and in the shade. In a thieket with otber hushes it sends up many thin stalks eight or ten feet high, with large luxuriant leaves at tbe top. In the shade, the leaves are green; in the open, dry ground, exposed to the sun, and without support from other bushes, the poison oak is a low, poverty-stricken little shruh, with a few reddish leaves.
LAUREL FAMILY.
Oreodaphne Californica-Bay Tree or Mountain Laurel-A valuable tree for cabinet and furniture work, thirty to one bundred feet high, and one to three feet in diameter. Beautiful for inside finish of houses.
Tetranthera Californica-The pungent, flavored and aromatic laurel-Is occasionally six inches in diameter, and could be classed with trees.
MESEREUM FAMILY.
Dirca Palustris-Leatherwood-A busb six to ten feet high; same as the Eastern species of Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New England.
SWEET GALE FAMILY.
Myrica Californica-Bayherry or Wax Myrtle-Moist places; fifteen to twenty feet high ; evergreen.
PINE FAMILY.
Pinus Ponderosa-Yellow Pine-High, eandy ridges; a valu- ahle tim ber, reaching one hundred feet in height.
It sometimes reaches a diameter of seven feet, and is next in size among the pines of California to the sugar pine. Its leaves grow in threes at the end of the branches, giving the foliage a peculiarly tufted appearance. The color of the leaves is a dark yellowish-green. The bark is of a ligbt yellowish-hrown or eork color, and is divided into large, smooth plates ahout four inches wide and twelve to twenty inches long. It is found on the Sierra range and is valuable for timber.
Pinus Lumbertiana-Sugar Pine-Is abundant on the slopes of the Sierras and occasional specimens are found low down in the foot-hills.
It is the most magnifieent tree of all the pine kind, and indeed, it bas no superior in the vegetable creation, save tbe mammoth and the redwood, the confessed monarehs of the plant kingdom. It is closely related to the white pine (Pinus Stro- bus) of the Eastern States; " though," as Dr. Newherry says, "like all the conifers on the Pacific Coast, it exhibits a sym- metry and perfection of figure, a healthfulness and vigor of growth, not attained hy the trees of any other part of the world. The mature tree sometimes reaches a height of 300 feet, and a diameter of twenty, hut it rarely exceeds 210 feet. · The young trees of the sugar pine give early promise of the maj- esty to wbich they subsequently attain. They are unmistak- ably young giants; even when having a trunk a foot in diam- eter, their remote and regularly-whorled hranehes, like the stem, covered with a smooth, grayish-green bark, showing that, although so large, tbe plant is still 'in the milk,' and bas only hegun its life of many centuries. The sugar pine conspicu- ously exhibits one of the most general and striking character- istics of the conifers-the great development of the trunk at the expense of the branches. Nearly the wholo growth is
RES. OF S. S, GIVENS, ID MILES NORTHEAST OF MERCED, MERCEO CO. CAL.
"ROSE COTTAGE" RES. OF WM M. RAYNOR . BUCHANAN, FRESNO CO.CAL.
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thrown into the trunk, which generally stands without a flaw or flexure, a perpendicular cone, all its transverse sections accurately circular, sparsely set with branches, which, in their insignificance, seem like the festoons of ivy wreathing about the columns of some ancient ruin. The leaves are three inches long, dark bluish-green in color, and they grow in groups of five. The foliage is not dense. The cones are large, some- times eighteen inches long by four thick. The wood is similar to that of the white pine-white. soft, homogeneous, straight- grained, clear, and free-splitting."
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