VII. THE CHANGE OF CLIMATE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
I have just been reading, for the third time, Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast," my sojourn near San Diego for a few months, where so many of the scenes and events he describes took place, having given me a renewed interest in the book.
It is very evident that the climate of southern California has greatly changed since Dana was here in the trading ships Pilgrim and Alert, in 1832 and 1833. The change has been from wet to dry. At that time his ship collected, and others engaged in the same trade collected, hundreds of thousands of hides and great quantities of tallow, all from cattle grown by the missions between San Diego and Santa Barbara. This fact implies good pasturage. The cattle grazed on the hills and plains that are now, during a large part of the year, as dry as a bone. At present cattle left to their own devices on this coast would soon starve to death.
Dana describes violent storms of wind and rain, mainly from the southeast, which the ship, anchored a few miles off the coast, or cruising up and down, experienced at all times of year—one or more storms each week, often lasting for days. One December he describes it as raining every hour for the whole month. The dread of the southeasters was ever present with the sailors. One of these, lasting three days, which came out of a cloudless sky, blew the sails to tatters. Nowadays a southeast storm of half a day is, according to my experience, an uncommon occurrence. To-day scarcely a drop of rain falls here from April till November, yet Dana describes many heavy rains in August. At present, in some of the interior valleys, where they grow alfalfa by means of irrigation, I see herds of well-kept dairy cows. In the season of rains the grass springs up and for a time cattle do well, but during the long dry season there is no pasturage save dry pasturage.
Although winter is supposed to be the rainy season here, I have been here during three seasons and have so far seen only light rains. To-day (December 16th) the earth is like powder as deep down as you care to dig. Yesterday I saw a man dragging in grain, and a great cloud of dust streamed out behind him. Ten or more years ago there was a very heavy rainfall in this locality that inundated large sections of the country and destroyed much property, the dry San Diego River getting out of bounds and carrying away bridges and floating houses on its banks. But it has been as dry as a highway ever since. It is clear that when the big rains do come they are more sporadic and uncertain than formerly.
VIII. ALL-SEEING NATURE
Sitting by a flat rock one summer morning, on my home acres in the Catskills, I noticed that the wild strawberry-vines sent out their runners over the rock, the surface of which is on a level with the turf, just as over the ground. Of course they could not take root, but they went through all the motions of taking root; the little clusters of leaves developed at intervals, the rootlets showed their points or stood at "attention," and the runners pushed out two or three feet over the barren surface and then seemed to hesitate like a traveler in the desert whose strength begins to fail. The first knot, or, one might say, the first encampment, was about one foot from the last one upon the turf, the next one about eight inches farther in; then the distance dropped to six inches, then to four. I think the runner finally gave it up and stopped reaching out. Each group of leaves apparently draws its main sustenance from the one next behind it, and when this one fails to reach the soil it loses heart and can give little succor to the next in front. The result is that the stools become smaller and smaller, and the distances between them less and less, down the whole line.
Nature's methods are seen in the little as well as in the big, and these little purple runners of the vine pushing out in all directions show the all-round-the-circle efforts of Nature as clearly as do the revolving orbs in sidereal space. Her living impulses go out in all directions. She scatters her seeds upon the barren as well as upon fertile spots. She sends rains and dews upon the sea as well as upon the land. She knows not our parsimony nor our prudence. We say she is blind, but without eyes she is all-seeing; only her creatures who live to particular ends, and are limited to particular spheres, have need of eyes. Nature has all time and all space and all ends. Delays and failure she knows not. If the runners of her strawberries do not reach their goal, the trouble corrects itself; they finally stop searching for it in that direction, and the impulse of the plant goes out stronger and fuller on other sides.
If the rains were especially designed to replenish our springs and supply our growing crops, the clouds might reasonably be expected to limit their benefactions, as do our sprinkling carts; but the rains are older than are we and our crops, and it is we who must adjust ourselves to them, not they to us.
The All-Seeing, then, has no need of our specialized vision. Does the blood need eyes to find its way to the heart and lungs? Does the wind need eyes to find the fertile spots upon which to drop its winged seeds? It drops them upon all spots, and each kind in due time finds its proper habitat, the highly specialized, such as those of the marsh plants, hitting their marks as surely as do others.