92 ESSAY UPON REDWOOD. 



rested growth, so operate as a cause of quality ? Or is it not 

 rather the result and evidence of a tenderness of texture too 

 delicate to withstand the tempest ? Besides, when this sort 

 of trees reach three to three hundred and fifty feet, stiffened 

 and cranky by size and age, the sway in an ordinary breeze 

 is even then several yards at top, and in a storm, such an all- 

 powerful snapper, no timber over-ambitious of its neighbor, 

 can stand. 



The writer, many years ago, in passing through the red- 

 wood region of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, survey- 

 ed these forests in their primeval grandeur. 25,000 feet to the 

 acre of outskirts to 50,000, or even 80,000, is officially given 

 by the Government; but if fairly taken off in any foreign or 

 best civilized European sense, the yield would reach more 

 than a million, if not even two million feet of timber to the 

 single acre of well selected areas ; true, only 96,000,000 are 

 said to be shipped to San Francisco annually. The lowest 

 estimates now available and these, of course, only conjec- 

 tural, as to the amount shipped to foreign ports direct from 

 the mills some put this as low as 35,000,000; but as we ex- 

 port redwood now to nearly all parts of the world for exam- 

 ple, to Peru, Mexico, Honolulu, Australia, Tahiti, Chile, Cen- 

 tral America, Europe, Asia, East U. S., Siberia, Japan, Pan- 

 ama, Marquesas, British Columbia, New Zealand, and else- 

 where, with thirty to forty large market mills with at least 

 twice the capacity reported, it must be simply immense. Al- 

 though placed at 131,000,000 in all, it can scarcely be doubted 

 that it is nearly as much more. Neither do those figures in- 

 clude the small mills for local demand ; lower, best butt logs 



