years old, 340 feet in total height, 230 feet to the first branch, and 10 feet 5 inches in diameter at 6 feet from the ground. I found it impossible to obtain in the dense forests accurate heights; but I saw lying on the ground a tree blown down many years ago which measured 240 feet, the top having been broken off at a point where the stem was still 3 feet in diameter. In the logging camp near Crescent City a tree which had just been felled measured 45 feet in girth at 6 feet from the base, and 24 feet in girth at 144 feet up; the top, knotty and full of branches, had smashed in the fall, and was rejected as being useless as timber.
Most of the trees cut are from 400 to 800 years old. After 500 years it usually begins to die at the top and to fall off in growth. The oldest redwood found by Fisher was 1373 years of age.
Isolated trees are occasionally blown down by the wind; but no considerable tracts are ever overthrown. There is no tap-root ; but the lateral roots, numerous and stout, strike downwards, usually at a sharp angle, and form a compact mass, in shape like an inverted funnel. Such roots both anchor the tree securely and provide it with a large supply of moisture.
Fires are of rare occurrence in the damp northern part of the redwood belt ; but farther south, where the climate is drier, they are frequent in August and September. Usually, however, only young trees and undergrowth are burned, the larger trees remaining unharmed. Injuries by fire or by the fracture of the branches by the wind, which involve the sapwood, are supposed to be the cause of the curious burrs and protuberances which are found on many trees.
Where the forests have been cut down, the better land has been permanently put under fruit, grain, or pasture; but on the worse lands the tree will survive and is in no danger of extinction, owing to its astonishing power of reproduction by sprouts. There are many fine stands of second-growth redwood ; as in Mendocino county, where young trees, only 45 years old, are nearly 100 feet high and 20 to 30 inches in diameter. In Sonoma county, second-growth timber is being cut commercially, and though sappy, makes good boards for boxes.
The Spaniards, near San Francisco Bay, were the first to cut the redwood forests; but their operations were on a very small scale. Regular felling only began in 1850, and at first, as redwood timber was little valued, only Douglas fir and Sitka spruce were taken out of the redwood belt. Of late years, redwood timber has greatly increased in value, and the introduction of machinery has made lumbering more easy and profitable. Only big companies, however, can work with profit, as the outfit is very expensive, consisting of sawmills, many miles of railroad in the forest, locomotives of a special type for ascending steep gradients, waggons, donkey-engines, and logging camps, with a large staff of workmen.
No cutting is being done at the present time in the southern counties. The largest sawmills are in Mendocino county; and they had cleared, by the year 1900, 150,000 acres, or a quarter of the total acreage, including the largest and best stands. In the same year the mills had cleared in Humboldt county 65,000 acres and in Del Norte county 2000 acres. Since that year cutting has been going on at an accelerated pace, and the quantity now felled annually is enormous. (A.H.)
