306 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKNIA. 



trade of the state. Our houses are built of himber, our streets 

 are planked with lumber, our fields are fenced with lumber, 

 and our flumes and sluices are made of lumber. And some 

 parts of the state are very rich in timber and can readily 

 supply the whole demand. Lumber is of three kinds, sawn, 

 hewn, and split ; the last two kinds being very small in im- 

 portance as compared with the first. About one hundred and 

 seventy millions of feet of lumber are sawn annually in Cali- 

 fornia, and at the average price of twenty dollars per one 

 thousand feet at the mill, the total amount of the lumber trade 

 may be estimated at three millions of dollars. The chief lum- 

 bering districts are in the Sierra Nevada, and very near the 

 coast. Mendocino is the largest lumbering county of the state, 

 and according to the assessor's report for 1860, produced thirty- 

 five millions of feet in that year. The mills are at Timber 

 Cove and the mouths of the ISToyo, Albion, and Big Rivers ; 

 and the tiuiber is nearly all redwood. Humboldt occupies 

 the next place, sawing thirty million feet per annum ; and 

 Santa Cruz county next, with ten million feet annually. All 

 the timber cut in Santa Cruz is redwood ; in Humboldt there 

 are about equal amounts of redwood, spruce, and fir, and a 

 little fragrant cedar. Santa Cruz ships much lumber to the 

 southern part of the state, and Mendocino and Humboldt 

 supply most of the redwood lumber for the San Francisco 

 m;irket. The lumber cut in the mining counties is mostly used 

 near home, large amounts being consumed for sluices, flumes, 

 and in other mining enterprises. 



The method of getting the logs to the mills in Humboldt 

 county is peculiar. The mills are all on the shores of Hum- 

 boldt Bay, which is surrounded by flat land six or eight 

 miles wide. Through this flat land run tide-water sloughs or 

 channels, into which brooks run from ravines in the hills. The 

 land in this county has all been Federal property, and has been 

 open to pre-emption ; and most of the lumbermen have laid 

 claim to the tracts where they work, or have bought them 

 with state-school warrants, under which any of the Federal 



