264 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



contain, on an average, forty-eight annual layers to the inch. The semi-diameter of the tree, 

 at the point where the specimen examined was taken from, being five feet two inches, (viz. at 

 twenty-five feet from the ground, ) supposing the tree increased in diameter at the same rate 

 during its whole life, there would be nearly three thousand annual layers ; but Dr. Gray, in 

 consideration of the greater thickness of the layers of a yryung tree, and from comparison of 

 sections of the so-called cypress of the Southern States, (Taxodium distichum,) assigns about 

 two thousand years as its highest probable age. ,.. 



Dr. C. F. Winslow, formerly of Boston, furnishes to the California Farmer the following 

 description of a visit to the localities of these gigantic trees; he says : " The road was more 

 or less shaded all the way by pines so gigantic as to awaken in me, who had never before 

 seen the native and lofty forest scenery of the north temperate zone, the strongest feelings 

 of wonder and admiration. I had never before conceived of the capacity of the various spe- 

 cies of conifera to attain such enormous dimensions. They were often six feet through, and 

 from one hundred and thirty to three hundred feet high, and so symmetrical and perfect in 

 form as to impress me with new and more commanding ideas respecting the force and ope- 

 ration of the vital principle presiding over the nourishment and growth of organized bodies. 



"The height of the locality is about five thousand feet above the sea, and two thousand 

 four hundred feet above ' Murphy's Camp,' on the Stanislaus. So far as known, the vege- 

 table growth, to which the n,ame of ' Big Tree' has been attached, grows in no other region of 

 the Sierra Nevada, nor on any other mountain range of the earth. It exists here only ; and 

 all the individuals of its kind, so far as I can learn, are localized to this vicinity. They are 

 embraced within a range of two hundred acres, and are enclosed in a basin of coarse, siliceous 

 material, surrounded by a sloping ridge of sienitic rock, which in some places projects above 

 the soil. The basin is reeking with moisture, and in the lowest places the water is standing, 

 and some of the largest trees dip their roots into the pools or water-runs. The trees of very 

 large dimensions number considerably more than one hundred. Mr. Blake measured one 

 ninety-four feet in circumference at the root, the side of which had been partly burned by 

 contact with another tree, the head of which had fallen against it. The latter can be mea- 

 sured four hundred and fifty feet from its head to its root. A large portion of this fallen 

 monster is still to be seen and examined ; and by the measurement of Mr. Lapham, the pro- 

 prietor of the place, it is said to be ten feet in diameter at three hundred and fifty feet from 

 its uptorn root. In falling, it had prostrated another large tree in its course, and pressed 

 out the earth beneath itself so as to be imbedded a number of feet into the ground. Its 

 diameter across its root is forty feet. A man is nothing in comparison of dimensions while 

 walking on it or standing near its side. This, to me, was the greatest wonder of the forest. 

 The tree which it prostrated in falling has been burned hollow, and is so large, a gentleman 

 who accompanied us from Murphy's informed us that, when he first visited the place two 

 years ago, he rode through it on horseback for two hundred feet without stooping but at one 

 spot as he entered at the root. We all walked many scores of feet through it ; but a large 

 piece of its side has fallen in near the head. But there are many standing whose magnitude 

 absolutely oppresses the mind with awe. In one place, three of these gigantic objects grow 

 side by side, as if planted with special reference to their present appearance. Another, so 

 monstrous as absolutely to compel you to walk around it, and even linger, is divided at from 

 fifty to one hundred feet from the ground into three of these straight mammoth trunks, 

 towering over three hundred feet into the sky. There are others whose proportions are as 

 delicate, symmetrical, clean, and straight as small spruces, that rise three hundred and fifty 

 feet from the ground. In one spot a huge knot of some ancient prostrate giant is visible 

 above the soil, where it fell ages ago, and the earth has accumulated so as nearly to oblite- 

 rate all traces of its former existence. The wood of this tree, I am told by Mr. Lapham, is 

 remarkable for its slow decay. When first cut down, its fibre is white ; but it soon becomes 

 reddish, and long exposure makes it as dark as mahogany ; it is soft, and resembles, in some 

 respects, pine and cedar. Its bark, however, is much unlike these trees ; nearest the ground 

 it is prodigiously thick, fibrous, and, when pressed on, has a peculiar feeUng of elasticity. In 

 some places it is eighteen inches thick, and resembles a mass of cocoanut-husks thickly 

 matted and pressed together, only the fibrous material is exceedingly fine, and altogether 



