578 THE FORESTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



"Fifteen hundred square miles is probably a liberal estimate for the wooded area. 



"BAKER COUNTY NORTH op LATITUDE 44 (3,800 square miles). This section is bordered on the west by a 

 high range of the Blue mountains, which is well timbered. The remainder is almost wholly without timber. 

 "The estimated wooded area of this county is 900 square miles." 



CALIFORNIA. 



The heavy forests of California are confined to the Coast Range, the eastern and western slopes of the Sierra 

 Nevada, and the group of mountains joining these ranges in the northern part of the state. They extend from 

 the Oregon boundary south to latitude 34 30' north. The most important trees of the Coast Range forest are the 

 redwood and the red fir. The tide-laud spruce and the hemlock of the Northern Coast Forest extend as far south 

 as cape Meudocino, although less generally multiplied and less valuable than in Oregon and Washington territory. 

 The chestnut oak (Quercus densijlora), of which the bark is largely used in tanning, is still common in the coast 

 forests of the northern part of the state. The most valuable forest of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada is 

 confined to a belt between 4,000 and 8,000 feet elevation, consisting of the sugar pine (Pinus Lambertiana), the yellow 

 pine, and the red fir. Small scattered groves of the big trees (Sequoia gigantea) stretch along the southern portion 

 of this belt. The western slopes of these mountains below 4,000 feet elevation are more or less densely covered 

 with various species of pine of little economic importance, and the broad valleys of the Sacramento and the San 

 floaquin, lying between the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada, are covered, except at the south, with an open 

 growth of oaks, often of immense size, although of little value except as fuel. The eastern slopes of the Sierra 

 Nevada are covered with a heavy forest, in which yellow pines (Pinus ponderosa and P. Jeffreyi) are the prevailing 

 and most important trees. 



South of latitude 36 30' the forests, both of the Sierra Nevada and of the Coast Range, become gradually less 

 heavy and less valuable than those covering the mountains farther north. Two degrees still farther south they are 

 open and scattered, and have little economic value. The pine and fir forests, however, which cover the upper 

 slopes of the San Bernardino and San Jacinto ranges are important on account of their isolated position in a region 

 destitute of tree covering, and supply a considerable local market with lumber. 



The northeastern and nearly all the southern and southeastern portions of the state are almost entirely destitute 

 of forest covering. Oaks and occasional pines and junipers are, however, dotted over the low mountains of 

 southwestern California, and willows and cottonwoods line the banks of streams. Forests of pine crown the highest 

 ridges of the Inyo and other mountain ranges, rising from the desert east of the Sierra Nevada, and arborescent 

 yuccas (Yucca brevifolia) form upon the high Mohave plateau an open forest, more remarkable in the strangeness 

 of its growth than in economic value. 



The narrow belt of redwood which extends along the western slopes of the Coast Range from the bay of 

 Monterey to the northern boundary of the state is the most important forest of similar extent now standing. I Few 

 trees equal the redwood in economic value. No other forest can compare with this in productive capacity, and no 

 other great body of timber in North America is so generally accessible or so easily worked. Single trees capable 

 of producing 75,000 feet of lumber are not uncommon, while a yield of from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 feet of lumber 

 per acre is by no means rare. The redwood has already been practically destroyed in the neighborhood of San 

 Francisco bay, both north and south, and through the entire extent of this forest the trees most accessible to 

 streams and railroads have been culled. Heavy bodies of redwood are still standing, however^ in the Santa Cruz 

 region, and in Humboldt county in the valleys of Eel and Mud rivers and Redwood creek. The largest number 

 of mills engaged in the manufacture of redwood lumber are located upon Humboldt bay, principally at Eureka and 

 Arcata. The logs which supply these mills are generally cut within a distance of 1 or 2 miles from the shores of the 

 bay, to which they are hauled by teams, made into rafts, and towed to the mills. Attempts made to raft logs down 

 the mountain streams watering the redwood forests have not been successful. The rivers flowing west from the 

 California Coast Range are short and rapid. Floods following the winter rains are sudden and severe, breaking up 

 rafts and driving the logs out to sea, or lodging them for from the banks. At periods of low water numerous bars 

 close these rivers to the navigation of the enormous redwood logs. The general destruction of these forests must 

 therefore be accomplished by means of short logging railroads specially constructed to bring logs to the mills. 

 Such a road has been built along Mad river, and there are others either built or projected near Trinidad and at 

 other points along the coast. 



Besides the mills upon Humboldt bay, there are others devoted entirely to the manufacture of redwood lumber 

 at Crescent City, in Del Norte county; Trinidad, Rohuerville, and Bridgeville, in Humboldt county; Westport, 

 Kibesillah, Albion, Little River, Caspar, Meudociiio, Cufi'ey's Cove, Punta Arena, and Gualala, in Mendociuo 

 county; Duncan's mills, in Sonoma county; and at Santa Cruz. 



Redwood lumber is principally shipped by schooner to San Francisco, the great point of lumber distribution 

 upon the Pacific coast, and also direct by water to Wilmington, San Diego, and other ports of southern California, 

 and to Mexico and South America. 



