THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 53 



"1797 A. D., when the tree was 2,068 Aears old, a tre- 

 mendous fire attached it, burning a great scar eighteen 

 feet wide. 



"One hundred and three years, between 1797 and 1900, 

 had enalDled the tree to reduce the exposed area of the 

 burn to about fourteen feet in width. 



"It is to be noted that in each of the three older burns 

 there was a tin3' cavity occupied by the charcoal of the 

 burned surface, but the wounds were finalh^ fully covered 

 and the new tissue above was full, even, continuous and 

 showed no sign of distortion or of the old wound." 



Professor Dudley says that if these trees where pro- 

 tected from fire and from the lumbermen the3' would live 

 man^' hundred of years longer, but so long as they are not 

 in charge of the government thej^ are not safe. "We ask 

 for their protection," concludes Prof. Dudley, "because the 

 Calaveras trees are historically by far the most interesting 

 of the big trees, because their preservation will afford the 

 highest and most innocent gratification to the thousands 

 of people who will visit them, and, lastly, we believe their 

 preservation will be most useful to the scientific observer 

 of the future in his work on problems in the origin and 

 history of species, in climatology, in the laws of growth. 

 All this work has a bearing on the problem how to treat 

 our forests so as to equalize the varying amounts of pre- 

 cipitation of moisture in the semi-arid region to the best 

 advantage of our water supply." — Vick*s Magazine. 



W.'^NTED. — Short notes of interest to the general bot- 

 anist are always in demand for this department. Our 

 readers are invited to make this the place of publication 

 for their botanical items. 



Bagasse as Paper Stock. — After the juice is pressed 

 from the sugar cane there is left a large amount of w^oody 

 matter called bagasse. This, in some mills, is used as fuel 

 under the boilers but according to the Sugar Planters' 



