REDWOOD LUMBER AND ITS USES 



331 



it holds paint well, and shrinks and swells but little where 

 the cars are exposed to rapidly varying extremes of heat 

 and moisture. Redwood lumber used in freight cars 

 has given 20 years service — an excellent record. 



On the Pacific Coast, tanks and vats are commonly 

 constructed of redwood. The largest and best wooden 

 water pipes are made of redwood, as are also aqueducts 

 and flumes built to supply cities and irrigated lands with 

 water. Eave troughs and gutters of redwood are used 

 not only in houses on the Pacific Coast but in distant 

 regions. 



Redwood shingles are one of this tree's best known 

 products. In some years seven hundred million redwood 

 shingles are produced. Redwood "shakes" are still on 



THE REDWOOD EFFECT HERE IS MOST RESTFUL 



This is an unrelieved redwood 

 at Fort Bragg, California, ii 



interior in the home of Otis Johnson 

 I the heart of the redwood district. 



the market; these are boards used like clapboards for 

 covering the sides and roofs of barns, sheds and other 

 buildings, and are manufactured by splitting them from 

 straight-gained, perfect logs. So easily does redwood 

 split that boards 2 inches thick and a foot wide may be 

 rived from a log 10 or 12 feet long. Such boards may 

 have a surface so smooth that they may easily be mis- 

 taken for sawed lumber. 



Redwood has many miscellaneous uses. It has served 

 fairly well as a paving block for city streets. It is 

 valuable for pattern making and for cigar and tobacco 

 boxes, meeting all requirements for the latter purpose. 

 It is used to a limited extent for fruit boxes, sign boards, 

 musical instruments, coffins, and in the manufacture of 



vehicles. Redwood bark is of value also, being made 

 into souvenirs that find a ready sale ; because of its 

 lightness it serves for fishing floats, cork carpet sub- 

 stitutes, insulation, and many other purposes. The lum- 



A SUPERB REDWOOD ROOM 



The entire interior of this room is executed in California redwood. 

 Note tlie carvings and the great breadth of the panels. 



ber is also used extensively for grape vine stakes and 

 fence posts. Some of it is used for shingles, shakes, con- 

 struction lumber, furniture and other uses described for 

 redwood. 



The enormous size of the Bigtree and the redwood is 

 responsible for great waste in lumbering, in spite of the 

 care taken in felling the trees. It is customary to clear a 

 space so that the tree can strike the ground with the least 

 possible breakage. Usually the choppers can cause the 

 trunk to fall exactly where it is desired ; a slight deviation 

 from its expected course may waste thousands of feet of 

 lumber or result in the splintering of an entire trunk, 

 so tremendous is the force with which these giants fall. 



.1 KtDWUUU IXTURluK 



This is the dining room at "Three Rivers Farm,'' Dover, N. H., the 

 country estate of E. W. Rollins. Note the great width of the red- 

 wood boards in the ceiling. 



