C A LI FORM A BWrUEES 



235 



earlier cutting took only part of this 

 timber, but the later operations have 

 removed practically every tree. 



Innumerable fires have scarred 

 nearly every large bigtree. Some 

 have great holes eaten into their 

 sides large enough to admit a horse 

 and rider, but still live, while only 

 blackened pits mark the places where 

 others once stood. Doubtless very 

 many more would have been de- 

 stroyed, had not nature provided these 

 trees with an enormously thick bark 

 which has enabled large numbers to 

 survive the fierce flames to which they 

 have long been subjected. 



A quite prevalent popular belief is 

 that the bigtree is not reproducing 

 itself, and that should the huge trees 

 now standing be destroyed, the spe- 

 cies might become extinct. This im- 

 pression probably came from observa- 

 tions made in the northern groves 

 where seedlings are very rare, the 

 natural conclusion being that the spe- 

 cies is in general reproducing itself 

 only very occasionally or not at all. 

 This supposed fact has been used as 

 one of the arguments for the federal 

 purchase of the North Calaveras 

 grove, which is still in private hands. 

 I believe that for other good reasons 

 this splendid body of bigtrees should 

 be owned and protected by the gov- 

 ernment, but not because the species 

 is in danger of disappearing for lack of reproductive capacity. 



A study of the silvical requirements of the bigtree shows that it is intoler- 

 ant of shade, and that moreover unless the seeds fall on mineral soil — 

 freed by fire or logging operations of its usual thick layer of half-rotted 

 vegetable matter — the resulting seedlings perish long before the slender 

 roots can force their way through the dry "duff" and into the soil below. 

 Unlike the southern groves, the northern bigtree forests have had no 

 lumbering operations in them to open up the dense shatle and to tear the 



Dense stand of young liigtroos four to 

 thirty feet high. Setiuoia National Forest. 

 Under favora))le soil and light condition.s 

 young bigtrees are holding their ovm in 

 competition with other species 



