"
"I should think," said Wilbur, "that the changing of a forest from one
kind of tree to another would be the most interesting. I mean getting
rid of the worthless trees and giving the advantage to those that are
finer."
"And a few sections west," commented the Supervisor, "you would find
that Bellwall, who's the Ranger there, thinks that the most interesting
thing in the whole of the forest work is putting an end to the diseases
of trees and to the insects that are a danger to them. Another Ranger
may be a tree surgeon."
"A tree surgeon doesn't help so much," put in McGinnis, "the timber is
niver worth a whoop!"
"There you go again," said the head of the forest, "there's other things
to be thought of besides timber." He turned to the boy. "You don't know
the trees of the Sierras, I suppose?"
"I think I know them pretty well now," answered Wilbur. "I had to learn
a lot about them at school, and then Rifle-Eye has been giving me
pointers the last few days."
"What's the difference between a yellow pine and a sugar pine?" queried
the Supervisor.
"Sugar pine wood is white and soft," said the boy, "yellow pine is hard,
harder than any other pine except the long-leaf variety."
"That's right enough. But how are you going to tell them when standing?"
Wilbur thought for a moment.
"I should think," he said, "that the yellow pine is a so much bigger
tree as a rule that you could tell it by that alone.
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