SUGAR PINE. 67 



while the people who could procure the pine were too far away from 

 the redw r ood to make much use of it. For that reason there was not 

 much competition between the two woods. Sugar pine roofed the 

 shacks in a region 500 miles long. 



The making of shakes became an important occupation on the 

 Pacific coast. The shake is a split, unshaved shingle, usually 30 

 inches long and from 4 to 6 inches wide, and seldom more than half 

 and often only a quarter of an inch thick. Thinness was regarded as 

 a virtue rather than a fault so long as the shake had enough body to 

 keep out the water. In early days the shake maker bought no timber, 

 but took it without leave or license from Government land. The 

 shake maker was wasteful. Under the most favorable circumstances 

 the timber felled was seldom half used, and often after trees that 

 would saw 10,000 or 20,000 feet of lumber were cut down they were 

 left to rot in the woods because their splitting properties were poor. 

 The men who worked at this occupation usually went in parties of 

 two or four, made a camp in the pineries, and spent the summer 

 within a radius of 200 or 300 yards. Four or five good trees afforded 

 a season's work. 



As the settlements increased in the valleys within 40 or 50 miles 

 from the pineries, demand grew for lumber other than shakes. Prim- 

 itive sheds and shanties could be made of shakes, including sides and 

 roofs, with the earth for a floor, but more pretentious barns and resi- 

 dences demanded lumber, and early in California history the sawmill 

 made its appearance. It did not, however, displace the shake maker, 

 for he continued to provide roofing, and shakes served to cover sub- 

 stantial buildings on ranches and to some extent in the towns. But 

 the shake makers were among the first to be singled out by the Govern- 

 ment for the unlawful cutting of its timber, and the seizure of shakes 

 representing a summer's work was not unusual. This discouraged 

 those who were illegally cutting timber, and the maker of shakes lost 

 half his foothold. Shake making from sugar pine, however, is still 

 going on to some extent. 



MANUFACTURE AND PRODUCTS. 



Sawmills and other manufacturing machinery were early brought 

 into use in the California sugar-pine regions. Some of the earliest 

 sawmills did not cut sugar pine, but within four or five years after 

 gold was discovered steam mills were located in the sugar-pine belt 

 and were sawing lumber for flumes, sluice boxes, bridges, houses, 

 barns, fences, and for other purposes. The quantity of lumber de- 

 manded by mines was very small compared with ranch and town de- 

 mands. The pioneer millmen followed the example of the pioneer 

 shake makers and cut convenient timber without obtaining the Gov- 

 ernment's consent. It would have been difficult at that time, however, 



