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THE TIMBERED PORTIONS OF CALIFORNIA. 



We have become so accustomed to speak of the forests of our State — 

 of our " Big Trees," as the grandest and most majestic in the world; 

 we hear so much of the vast quantities of timber and lumber being 

 shipped from those forests, to supply the nations of the earth with masts 

 and other heavy timbers for ship building and other purposes, that we 

 have thoughtlessly come to regard our supply of these materials, and of 

 materials for fuel, as practically inexhaustible. The facts are quite dif- 

 ferent. Although the forests we have are properly a subject of State 

 pride, they are as properly a subject of State protection. California is 

 far from being a well timbered country. Nearly all the timber of any 

 value for ship and general building purposes, or for lumber for general use, 

 is embraced within small portions of the Coast Eange or the Sierra 

 Nevada districts. Eedwood, the most valuable timber in the State, and 

 probably in the world, taking all its qualities into consideration, is prin- 

 cipally confined to the counties of Mendocino, Sonoma and Santa Cruz. 

 Monterey, Santa Clara and San Mateo contain but small tracts each, cov- 

 ered with this valuable timber. Humboldt, Trinity, Klamath and Del 

 Norte embrace nearly all the balance of the timber of value in the Coast 

 Eange. It mostly consists of an inferior or hybrid redwood, spruce and 

 pine. The lumber district of the Sierra Nevada is principally embraced 

 in the counties of El Dorado, Placer, Nevada, Sierra, Plumas and Sis- 

 kiyou. Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa contain only scattering 

 clusters of valuable timber, though some of the largest and finest trees 

 in the world are found within their borders. The timber of this district 

 is mostly different varieties of pine, spruce and cedar. The other moun- 

 tain counties of the State afford very little timber of any account for 

 building purposes or for lumber. The agricultural counties, as a general 

 thing, have only narrow strips of timber along the water courses, con- 

 sisting mostly of scrub oak, cottonwood, sycamore and willow, of but 

 little general value, except for wood. The surface of our best timbered 

 counties is not, in general, half covered with valuable timber. It is 

 therefore safe to estimate that not over one-twentieth of the surface of 

 the State is covered with forests containing trees valuable for timber or 

 lumber. 



THE CONSUMPTION AND DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 



It is now but about twenty years since the consumption of timber 

 and lumber commenced in California, and yet we have the opinion of 

 good judges, the best lumber dealers in the State, that at least one-third 

 of all our accessible timber of value is already consumed and destroyed ! 

 If we were to continue the consumption and destruction at the same 

 rate in the future as in the past, it would require only forty years, there- 

 fore, to exhaust our entire present supply. This, in itself, seems like a 

 startling proposition, but let us look a little further and we shall find 

 truths and considerations more startling still. In the twenty years to 

 come we will probably more than double our population, but let us 

 assume that we will only double it. As a general rule, in a new country, 

 the consumption of timber increases in about double the ratio of popu- 

 lation. Thus while the increase of population of the United States, from 

 eighteen hundred and fifty to eighteen hundred and sixty, was thirty- 

 five and fifty-nine one-hundredths per cent., the increase of the consump- 

 tion of lumber was sixty-three and nine one-hundredths per cent. Upon 



