600 FOREST RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



On the last-named mountain it was seen s^rowing as a shrub, in favorable places, np 

 to 9,000 feet, and small trees were so compacted by the pressure of the snow on them 

 in winter that a man could easily walk over the ilat surface formed by their foliage. 

 A little clump of this species just at the edge of the snow, on Lassen's Peak, shows the 

 aspiring character of this tree, which is one widely distributed over the high mountain 

 tops of the Cordilleras. The P. aristata is also found in the Rocky Mountains, as well as 

 along a limited part of the highest region of the Sierra Nevada.^ 



Mr. C. n. Eeed, president of tbe State Board of Agriculture, in 1868, 

 estimated that a twentieth part of California was covered with heavy 

 timber, and about an eighth, more or less, with trees of some kind. 

 Within twenty years, at least a third of the whole native supply of ac- 

 cessible timber had been cut off or destroyed, and that, judging the 

 future by the past, it would require about forty years to exhaust the 

 entire present supply. This did not include estimates of the demands 

 that might arise from increased population, or the extension of new 

 industries, which might reduce the term to twenty years. One of the 

 worst features in respect to this subject was the useless and criminal 

 destruction of timber, which had been indulged in to an unprecedented 

 extent. He says : 



Thousands upon thousands of the noblest and most valuable of our forest-trees in 

 the Sierra Nevada districts have been destroyed without scarcely an object or a pur- 

 pose — certainly with no adequate benefit to the destroyer, or to any one else. This prac- 

 tice cannot be condemned in too severe terms ; it cannot be punished with too severe 

 penalties. 



The hard woods of California afford some noble specimens of orna- 

 mental woods ; but for the strong and elastic kinds, used by carriage- 

 makers, and for agricultural imi^lements and the wood-work of machines 

 where great toughness is required, the supplies come wholly from the 

 Atlantic States. Mr. Eeed, in 18G8, says : 



Even now the cost and scarcity of these articles are having an oppressive effect upon 

 every industry in the State. The expense of agricultural implements and tools 

 here over their cost in the Eastern States is already operating as a serious draw- 

 back upon the thrift and profit of our farmers, brought in close competition, as they 

 now are, with our neighbors of the Western Atlantic States. The cost of lumber for 

 building and fencing, in most of our agricultural districts, obtained, as it is, at a dis- 

 tance of hundreds of miles away, is even now so great that our farmers are among 

 the poorest housed people of any agricultural community in the Union, where the 

 country has been settled an equal length of time. Their crops and stock are but 

 poorly sheltered, if at all, and their farms are worse than poorly fenced. To the ex- 

 pense of lumber, more than any other cause, must be attributed the general dilapidated 

 appearance of our agricultural districts. 



This scarcity had led to forced systems of farming — too frequent 

 cropping, too little nursing, and consequently too rapid exhaustion. 

 Building improvements were checked, and the enhanced cost of lumber 

 had raised the prices of rent. He concludes this statement with the 

 question, which the future must answer: " If this be the case now, 

 when we are so young, and our population so thin, when the demand 

 for these articles is increased twenty-fold, and the supply decreased in 

 the same ratio, who can depict the condition of our State?" 



Eedwood of California {Secpioia sempervireyis). -^This belongs to the 

 same genus as the giant trees of Calaveras, Mariposa, and other points ; 

 is first in importance among the timber-trees of California. It some- 

 times occurs fifteen feet in diameter and three hundred feet high ; and 

 instances are mentioned of specimens twenty feet in diameter. It 

 grows only on underlying metamorphic sandstone, and does not thrive 

 in other formations. The redwood belt extends from Humboldt County, 

 near the northern border, and reaches down the coast for a hundred 



^Yoseniite Book. 



