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  • From: "Kirby Fry" <peace@totalaccess.net>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] The Loss of Our Trees
  • Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 08:04:06 -0500

Claude,

Truly a sad scene. I believe our collective memory fails us when it comes
to remembering the scope of deforestation which we have perpetrated on this
continent.

In Texas I am working with progressive "environmentalists" who would remove
trees in order to replace them with grasslands. Mainly, because they claim
that much of Texas was a treeless prairie and should be preserved as such,
but also because the "death of the prairies" has gone out like a war cry to
grassland ecologists, and the restoration movement ends up somewhat
over-eagerly working with many private land owners who would like to see the
"encroaching" trees removed from their pastures.

Here's an excerpt for the group from Texas historian, Del Winager, in his
book, "The Explorer's Texas." This excerpt addresses the myth that has
grown up supporting the argument that trees are taking over areas where they
didn't previously exist and that their removal is essential in restoration
projects.

It's quite long, but a gem of a piece of literature that all restoration
ecologists should have on hand.

* * * * *

The Explorer's Texas
by Del Winager,
Eaken Press, San Antonio, TX

After having gathered all of the eyewitness, immediately-written reports
generally known to exist and having presented what we believe to be a fair
cross section of them for the reader's examination, we are unhappily forced
to make note of what seems to us a modern mythology which has grown up about
what this region was originally like. This is the idea that juniper and
other trees have invaded and grown up to obstruct what was originally an
open, practically treeless Hill Country.

We call this a modern myth even though it apparently got started quite
a while ago. It probably grew naturally out of the shortness of memories and
the well-documented decline of trees under the assault of the field
clearers, the fence and cabin builders, the cedar choppers, the charcoal
burners, shingle makers, etc., which very effectively cleared the bulk of
the Hill Country in the latter half of the 19th century. Although we have
not been able to trace the actual originator of this obvious fiction, we
will see that it was expressed in a forestry publication as early as 1917.
It got the big boost toward respectability which it needed when none other
than Benjamin Tharp, the renowned student of Texas flora,wrote passages
concerning the Hill Country such as the following 1952 example: "Cedars have
also spread with great rapidity, covering former grasslands with dense
impenetrable thickets within a matter of thirty to forty years."44

Now Tharp's statement may have been perfectly valid concerning 1952
and the half century or so previous to that, during which cedars did claim
former open areas, but it was the man-cleared hills of the late 19th century
which the cedars were reclaiming around the turn of the century. Tharp
failed to look back beyond that time of the great cutting and burning to the
original cedar-rich, thickety Hill Country our explorers consistently
described, therefore failed to comprehend that the cedars were only
reclaiming what had been theirs from time immemorial, and contributed to the
unfortunate modern myth that the Hill Country had originally been open
grassland and the junipers unnatural invaders.

With this sort of a start the idea's place in the modem mythology was
secure, and it began to appear in almost every statement. Not liking to
single out any one modern account, but finding it necessary to quote one in
order to present the reader an actual statement the same way we do the
explorers' so he can choose himself between the two versions, we quote a
1977 passage. We have chosen this particular statement from many, just as we
do the explorers' accounts we use, because it is most detailed and graphic,
and also because it is typical in giving as evidence for its statements
nothing but a reference to reminiscences - which we have found to be
unreliable.

The typical modem myth is well stated as follows: "Standing atop any
rise west of Austin, one can see an expanse of landscape which is familiar
to most Central Texans: dark green juniper contrasting with the lighter
shades of Spanish red oaks, cedar elms and sumacs. These Hill Country
vistas, especially in late dusty afternoons, seem ancient and unchanging.
But the dominant plant community is a relatively recent development. Before
this area was transformed by the effects of man, its original composition
was grassland or savannah. Large tree species were originally confined to
canyon draws, river bottoms and other silty areas. The rest of the uplands,
hillsides and plateaus were covered with annual and dense, lush grasses
which grew, according to early pioneer reports, 'up to the stirrups on a
man's horse.' Cedar brakes and brush thickets no one but a goat would
consider appealing were uncommon until nearly the turn of the century . . .
J.H. Foster commented in a 1917 forestry bulletin that the old-timers and
few remaining Indians of his time remembered the Hill Country as an unending
ocean of grass . . . The complete wooded covering on most hills today in the
Edwards Plateau is testimony to the very rapid effect man can have on the
environment.'145

Read again here, if necessary, the explorers' accounts of the Hill
Country already set out. Look in them for the "unending ocean of grass"
without trees and for cedar brakes and brush thickets stated to have been
uncommon. If you find few trees and thickets in these accounts, then believe
in what I call the modern myth of the original Hill County without trees. On
the other hand, if the reports of those who were actually here do not agree
with the modem party line of few trees originally in the area, then has the
myth misled us? And why would usually objective minds fall so easily for
something so contradictory to the actual eyewitness accounts of the original
scene?

The answer has to be for grass. Everyone wants more grass, and handy
scapegoats on which to place the blame for the present dearth of grass in
the Hill Country are the junipers and other bushes - when nobody wants to
blame the real goats and sheep which most ranches overstock in such numbers
that they eat out all the forbs and tall plants, keeping the area "clean."

Can we look at the problem objectively and get any idea, from the
explorers' accounts and our own observations, of the real situation
concerning grass and trees in the Hill Country?

Attempting this, we find that, first, the Hill Country when found was
truly a sea of grass. We have seen this grass described as 3 or 4 feet tall
and that it brushed the stirrups of the explorers must have been very true.
But we also see that, second, the Hill Country was at the same time mostly
tree covered, with often "miles of brush country" and the slopes mostly
covered with "stunted live-oaks and cedar"-if the pre-1860 reports are true
at all. It follows, therefore, that, third, the trees and the grass
originally grew together and the one did not rule out the other. Remember
that Olmsted stated unequivocally that "wherever it [soil] exists, grass
grows, even over the summits of the mountains if they be not bare rocks." He
did not say, unless there were trees present. The testimony of the explorers
is that originally the trees and the tall, thin grass which
covered all the soil coexisted.
This is a heretical idea today, and not surprisingly so when it does
not seem borne out by present observation. But let us observe carefully and
we may find still more facts bearing on the discrepancy. And our fourth
point is that the tall, coarse grass which was once here is, except in a
very few protected situations, gone from the Hill Country anyway. It was the
big and little bluestems, the switch grasses and Indiangrass, the wild ryes,
etc. Can the trees be blamed for this?

Fortunately we have an early settler's letter, written in 1860, in
which the writer mourned the passing of the grasses even then, and gave us a
clear statement of the cause of their disappearance. The writer was Jack
Burrowes, an early settler on Onion
Creek, and he wrote: "I am getting a little afraid the sheep will take the
mountains in four or five years more, for there is h[e]rds from 500 head to
5000 passing every five or six weeks going up a little higher than I am, and
once in a w[h]ile a h[e]rd will stop within three or four miles of us. Sheep
is mighty hard on the range. You can tell a sheep ranch before you get in
two or three miles of the house, for they keep the grass eat oflf] plum in
the ground, and cattle or horses cant get hold of it. And after they are on
a place six months thair haint no grass within a quarter of the pens. And
that keeps of[f] other stock."46

We propose here as a fifth element in the situation our own conclusion
that, rather than antagonists opposing the original grasses of the Hill
Country, the trees were and are still the best promoters and even the
conservators of the grasses. The only plants of big bluestem I have ever
been able to my self find in the present Hill Country were all growing in
the midst of such dense thickets or thorn bushes that even the goats
couldn't get to them or else in such protected places as old, fenced, but
long overgrown cemeteries.

Even more significant to me are such facts as the following. After much
searching I finally found a plot of many acres which has apparently never
been cut over and which, being cut off from the rest of a ranch by a large
creek and its bluffs, has, in the knowledge of the long-time owners, never
been grazed by domestic animals for at least 60 years. This plot is mostly
covered with large juniper trees over 12 inches in trunk diameter and easily
200 or more years old, with here and there an oak or other tree included.
These trees are mostly spaced 30 to 50 feet apart, and shade the majority of
the plot. The soil is good and tall bunch grasses cover almost all of it.
But what is most important is that by the actual count of my ecology
classes, which have used this for
some of their field studies, there are more living grass plants per unit
area growing under these trees than in any of the open, unshaded spots
between them. We believe certain grasses actually grow better in the deep
leaf mould of these trees and in the
protection they give from the intense southern sun and strong, drying winds
of this region. If this is true, then cutting these trees would actually
reduce the grasses and leave only the smaller, more tough ones which can
take the unprotected situations. And
introducing domestic animals into the plot would also clear out these
grasses, leaving the spaces under the trees bare of all but the unpalatable
forbs and briars, as they usually are in today's grazed Hill Country. We
cannot tell how well trees and grass can coexist except by looking where no
domestic animals have been allowed to graze for at least half a century,
which means our observation of most of the present Hill Country can have no
relevance to the question.

But what about those extremely dense cedar breaks where admittedly
little if any grass grows under the interlocking boughs? Surely these should
be cleared so the grass can grow. Ranchers are doing this all the time.

We have sought out and studied these too, and all true cedar breaks we
have gotten into were growing on such steep, rocky slopes or in situations
where the soil was so shallow that little else could grow there anyway. The
only soil in these places is the accumulation of the junipers' leaf mould,
and if these thickets are removed, only for a few short years can any useful
grasses grow and fool the ranchers. After this the small amounts of soil the
junipers had painfully cached there over centuries is dried out by the sun
and wind and eroded away to leave only another bare, rocky ledge with a few
especially tough and useless ledge dwellers, such as beargrass and sotol,
upon it. We think that the junipers are not the causes of such barren spots,
but nature's best agents to clothe such open sores where rocks stick out,
when nothing else can. If we imagine
that grass can do it, we are kidding ourselves, and if the party line that
these hills were oceans of grass with no trees continues to be acted upon by
clearing, then the hills are truly in trouble.

Since those advancing this idea are using reminiscences for their
evidence, we must deal with that a little more. These memories cited come
mostly from around the turn of the century. We have seen that vast areas
must have been practically denuded then, and this may be what is most
remembered in-stead of the earlier, original growth. We therefore wish to
end this section by pitting an earlier reminiscence against those.

We present a passage which we would not ordinarily use because it is a
reminiscence and comes from a time slightly after our cut-off date. It is a
statement written about 1875, and it speaks about the Hill Country not only
at the close of the exploratory period but in the interval between 1860 and
the time of the usual reminiscences.

If any choose to cite reminiscences to prove what the Hill Country was
originally like, they must deal with the statement of C. Hugo Claus, which
is as follows: "It was in 1855 when I first came to the Cibolo Valley.
Boerne, which at that time consisted only of a few huts, had just been
surveyed . . .At that distant time, the country surrounding Boerne retained
the natural beauty of its virgin wilderness, civilization had scarcely
touched its forests and the red sons of the prairies roamed the valley at
will . . . The valley is bordered on the north by a chain of hills, whose
highest peaks bear the well known storied names of Malakoff and Redan.
Ichristened these mountains by their names while I and other hunting
companions traversed the hills and marveled at the spendor of the valley. On
the opposite side of the mountain chain towards the north flows the
Guadalupe River, a beautiful river, fish laden, shaded with giant cypresses
which now [remember, this was about 1875] unfortunately have mostly
disappeared. Eastward and southward the valley is enclosed by lesser hills
whose side valleys are utilized for cattle and sheep raising. Toward the
west the steep belt of hills continues in which clefts the Cibolo Creek
springs and other creeks which empty into the Cibolo . . . The mountains are
cedar bedeckt, the valleys contain delightful prairies with occasional
groves of trees of ten or twelve varieties of oaks. The whole valley
resembles a park, whose diversity and variety cannot be easily duplicated
elsewhere. Cactus, yucca, and Mimosa give the valley a subtropical
appearance especially notable during the spring when the snow white blossoms
of the Yucca lighten the valley. The banks of the streams or bottoms contain
poplars, mulberries, walnuts and pecans, also acorns. Boeme twenty years ago
and today [1875] are frankly vastly different. . ."47

END







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