34 Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



opposite side of the circle that surrounded the huge club campfire. He 

 came over to our side. He was like some one who had just seen innocent 

 men condemned to death and knew that if he could not get help they 

 would be executed the next morning. His voice shook as he spoke. 



' ' Why, I 've seen them, ' ' he said. ' ' They are all numbered 61-73-87, 

 ready to cut. They are just like these" he motioned upward where 

 the dark roof of the forest closed in far above the light of the fire. 

 "And they're going to cut them down. Why, it seemed to me when 

 I saw those numbers you go over to-morrow morning and you '11 

 understand if a man could only prevent that destruction, could only 

 save those trees ! 



The Giant Tree proper lives only in the thin, dry air of the Sierras, 

 rarely below 5,000 feet altitude, climbing thence up to the 8,000-foot 



A redwood forest in California in its natural state. Observe the shrubs 

 and ferns that flourish in the cool aisles of the woodland. 



level and even higher, so that it may look, with little hindrance, to the 

 bare peaks and the glaciers above. It is found in much less homo- 

 geneous forests than the redwood, sharing the dominion of these sunny 

 plateaus with mighty sugar and yellow pines and spruces and firs. 

 In the southern portions of the belt, along the Kaweah and Tule rivers, 

 there are Giant-Tree groves that deserve to be called forests vigorous 

 young trees and saplings, growing beside their ancient, storm-stricken 

 sires,, but more often the Giant Trees bear much the same relation to 

 the forest as a whole as is borne by the occasional primeval oaks found 

 among the common second-growth timber in the "woods" of the East 

 and Middle West. 



The largest tree known is probably the "General Sherman," in the 

 Giant Forest Grove in the Sequoia National Park, about forty miles 

 east of the town of Visalia, in the central southern part of the State. 



