This ever-gray, little hunger-pinched pygmy among trees looks about as much like an oak as does a diminutive monkey like a grown man. A peculiarity of this individual in treedom is that it keeps its ash-colored leaf until it has a new set to put on in the spring, so that all winter long it presents the same color as it does in the summertime. Its bark is loose and shaggy, being shed rapidly, and gives one the thought of the old grape vine; hanging in bunches, the bole has always a ragged appearance. It is truly the dry-land plant, always found where the alkali or water is not too abundant; but in favored spots where there is only a little dampness and not too much fierceness of the summer heat it grows eight or ten feet high, making a body large enough for fence posts. This is extraordinary, for usually these Liliputian forests do not attain a height of more than four feet, and often much less. So diminutive are these solemn woods that the ordinary gang-plow can walk right through them, turning the shrubbery under like tall grass, although every tree is perfect, just like the dwarf creations produced by the resourceful Japanese. The seed of this tiny tree grows on stiff, upright filaments like the broom-corn straws. These stems are very bitter and are often used by the range-riders on long rides or roundups to excite the flow of saliva when thirst overtakes them too far from water. Because of its bitterness it is often called wormwood. Not many uses have been found for the wood of these primeval forests. In many sections the people have nothing but sagebrush for firewood. The whole tree is used, special stoves, or heaters, being made to accommodate the whole plant. It is gathered in the following manner: Two immense T-rails of railroad iron are laid side by side, one inverted, and securely fastened together; to the ends of these are hitched two teams of horses or mules, which pulling parallel to each other, are driven into the standing fairy forests and the swaths of fallen timber show the track of this unnatural storm. Its roots have such slight hold on the soil that it easily falls. Wagons and pitchforks follow, and the whole of the felling is hauled untrimmed to the home for hand-axing if too large; and it is all burned, top and root. There is so much vegetable oil in this queer plant that it makes a fine and very quick fire, green or dry. After a summer rain there is no aromatic perfume surpassing that of the odor of sagebrush filling the newly washed air. The mountaineer who has had to make a trip East gladly opens his window, as his train pushes back into the habitat of these aromatic shrubs, to get an early whiff of the health-laden, sage-sweetened atmosphere of the beloved Westland and homeland. THE IRON TRAIL