Of the many pleasant memories of camp life in the forests of America which are a source of delight to the writer none are recalled with greater pleasure than those associated with the sugar-pine of the Sierra Nevada, where the ground is carpeted with the long brown needles that fall in showers at certain seasons from the boughs far overhead. With the faded leaves are strewed also the great cones which always excite wonder and admiration. In the clear air and brilliant sunlight of the Californian mountains the luxuriant plume-like leaves far aloft appear to be formed of burnished silver or have the yellow of gold, according as the light strikes them, and at night the lofty boughs swayed by the winds make music such as no other forest can produce. Nothing in the vegetable world, not even the great sequoias, convey such an abiding impression of strength and majesty as these pines which have withstood the storms of centuries without losing their vigour or their symmetry and beauty of form. Unfortunately as it would seem, however, these magnificent trees are useful, as the term is commonly employed, and are fast falling a prey to lumbermen, who measure their value in dollars. The yellow pine of the Pacific mountains, not to be confounded, however, with the yellow pine of the southern Appalachian region, fortunately has another common name, the _silver pine_, which is more appropriate and distinctive. This is the most widely spread, perhaps, of all the pines of North America, and is familiar to every one who has travelled through the Pacific mountains from British Columbia to Mexico, and from the Black Hills of Dakota or the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico westward to within hearing of the surf of the Pacific Ocean. It ranks second in size to the sugar-pine, but is a near rival in strength and nobleness of form. As might be inferred from its wide distribution, the silver pine had adapted itself to a great range of conditions, not only of climate, but of soil and height above the sea. It is found from an elevation of about 2,000 feet above the sea up the mountainsides nearly to timber-line, and flourishes alike in the hot, arid valleys and in regions bordering on perpetual snow and ice. One beautiful feature of the silver-pine forests is their open, park-like character. The trees stand far apart, and thus have room to reach not only a great size, but a remarkable degree of perfection of form. Between the islands of shade on the sunlit ground there is usually but little undergrowth, and the far-extending natural pastures permit one to ride in any direction without inconvenience.