OTHER BKANCIIES OF IXDUSTRT. 311 



Avood trees twenty feet in diameter, and one measuring twenty- 

 ei^bt feet. On the trail from Humboldt Bay to Trinidad, tbere 

 are very large trees, and indeed all along the coast, from Eel 

 River to tbe Klamath, there are numerous trees of mammoth 

 size. 



The spruce cut at Humboldt Bay is light and is used for 

 packing-boxes. The redwood is used for siding, furniture, 

 raih'oad-sleepers, telegraph-poles, fence-posts, and all kinds of 

 house-work, inside and out. The fragrant cedar has an odor 

 suggestive of a mixture of turpentine and ottar of roses, and is 

 used for cupboards, clothes-presses, and inside-work of houses. 

 Fir is used for fence-boards, studding, rafters, joists, and 

 plank, but the grain is too coarse for inside-work of houses. 

 Most of the lumber cut in the Sierra Nevada is sugar-pine, a 

 clear, good wood, which is the chief material for inside work 

 and furniture in the mining districts. 



The principal kinds of split lumber produced in California, 

 are fence-posts, rails, pickets, and shingles. The redwood-tree 

 splits very freely, smoothly, and straight ; and furnishes nearly 

 all the split lumber of the coast. It is a favorite tree for fence- 

 posts, telegraph-poles, and railroad-sleepers, because of its 

 great durability under ground, lasting three or four times as 

 long as any other wood in common use. For split lumber, the 

 tree is cut down and divided with a cross-cut saw, in the same 

 manner as for saw-logs. The choice of the trees for splitting 

 is important, as they differ greatly in the straightness of the 

 grain, and the facility of splitting. Those trees which grow 

 in places exposed to the wind are often twisted, and the wood 

 is full of curls, and will not open without splintering. Where 

 the wood twists, indications of the course of the grain will 

 usually be found in the course of the seams in the bark. The 

 best trees are those with a straight, perpendicular growth, 

 preserving nearly the same thickness one hundred feet up, as 

 at the surface of the ground, with no limbs for one hundred 

 and fifty feet, with thin, smooth bark, seamed with perpendic- 

 ular lines. It is a pleasure to strike an axe into such a tree. 



