BOTANY. 93 



feet in diameter six feet above the ground ; and others equally 

 large are found in the northwestern part of the state. Trees 

 two hundred and fifty feet high and eight feet through are 

 not rare. The wood is very straight-grained, free-splitting, 

 durable, soft, and light. So freely does it split, that boards 

 twenty feet long, eight inches wide, and an inch thick, are 

 sometimes made from it with the frow. No w^ood in the world 

 splits so beautifully and regularly. There is no better wood for 

 the general use of the farmer, and it is the chief building ma- 

 terial of the coast. No timber is more durable either above or 

 below ground. The color is a rich dark-red, which, when var- 

 nished, makes a fine appearance in furniture. The tree grows 

 in dense forests, which contain an immense amount of timber. 

 Thus, on the plain southeast of Crescent City, there are hun- 

 dreds of acres of land of which every fifteen feet square, on an 

 average, supports a tree three feet through and two hundred 

 and tw^enty-five feet high — a statement that may appear in- 

 credible to those who have seen only the forests east of the 

 Mississippi River. These trees will often furnish twenty saw- 

 logs, each ten feet long, and every acre wall supply material to 

 make one million feet of sawn lumber, which, at the low rate 

 of fifteen dollars per one thousand feet, is worth fifteen thou- 

 sand dollars. The redwood stump, after the tree has been 

 cut down, throws out a number of shoots, one or two of which 

 choke down the weaker ones and become large trees. A red- 

 wood forest is almost inexterminable. 



§ 68. Pines. — The sugar-pine (Plnus lamhertiana) is the 

 most magnificent tree of all the pine kind, and indeed it has no 

 superior in the vegetable creation, save the mammoth and the 

 redwood, the confessed monarchs of the plant kingdom. It is 

 closely related to the white pine {Pinus strohus) of the East- 

 ern states; "though," as Dr. Newberry says, "like all the 

 conifers on the Pacific coast, it exhibits a symmetry and perfec- 

 tion of figure, a healthfulness and vigor of growth not attained 

 by the trees of any other part of the Avorld," The mature tree 

 sometimes reaches a heii-ht of three hundred feet and a diam- 



