356 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



of the trees are five feet in diameter, 200 feet high, and 80 

 feet to the first limbs. The wood is dark red in color, close 

 in texture, soft, light, straight-grained, free-splitting, and dur- 

 able. It is unsurpassable for railroad ties, good for the inside 

 finish of houses, and tolerable for such furniture as does not 

 need to be very strong. The redwood trees have been cut 

 down from large areas, but the roots throw up shoots which 

 soon grow again into trees ; and if carefully managed, there 

 would be no decrease in the area covered by this valuable 

 growth ; but under neglect, other conifers are encroaching on 

 it. In some places the roots of the redwood have been dug 

 up, as on the hills back of Oakland ; and as the foliage of the 

 Sequoias not only shades the ground, but also condenses the 

 moisture of the fogs, the land thus deprived of its protection 

 has lost the moisture and the numerous springs found on it 

 thirty years ago. A redwood in Santa Cruz County, known 

 as Fremont's tree, is 275 feet high, and 19 feet in diameter, 6 

 feet above the ground ; and many trees still larger are found 

 between the Klamath and Russian Rivers. Near the road 

 between Eureka and Arcata, in Humboldt County, there is a 

 tree that measures 61 feet in circumference of trunk. 



283. Pines. The sugar-pine (Pinus lambertiana) is the 

 most magnificent tree of all the pine kind, and indeed it has 

 no superior in the vegetable creation, save the mammoth and 

 the redwood, the confessed monarchs of the plant kingdom. 

 It is closely related to the white pine (Pinus strobus) of the 

 Eastern States ; " though," as Dr. Newberry says, " like all 

 the conifers on the Pacific Coast, it exhibits a symmetry and 

 perfection of figure, a healthfulness and vigor of growth, not 

 attained by- the trees of any other part of the world." The 

 mature tree sometimes reaches a height of three hundred 

 feet, and a diameter of twenty, but it rarely exceeds two hund- 

 red and ten. The young trees of the sugar-pine give early 

 promise of the majesty to which they subsequently attain. 

 They are unmistakably young giants; even when having a 



