ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



99 



in the process of construction. The route of 

 tliis highway made the timber accessible and 

 the immediate result was the establishment of 

 small lumber camps that are destroying the 

 trees along its edge. Not only are the trees 

 along the road cut down, but the highway itself 

 in many cases has been injured. It is hard to 

 rind more disastrous bungling even in road 

 construction. 



One logging company, having thoroughly 

 devastated large areas of its home state in the 

 cast, has recently purchased great tracts of 

 Redwoods. These have been farmed out in 

 small plots of forty acres each to various indi- 

 viduals, who purchased on what was virtually a 

 stumpage basis, and the cutting was in full 

 swing in July 1919. The writer drove through 

 these same groves two years ago, in August 

 1917. and the change was sickening. This ex- 

 ample of human greed and waste can scarcely 

 be described. The pictures on pages 101-102, 

 101-105 tell the story better than words. 



These great trees with their hundreds of feet 

 of clear timber have among other valuable 

 qualities the unfortunate characteristic of easy 

 cleavage or splitting, and so they are doomed to 

 the ignoble fate of being riven for railroad ties, 

 for shakes or shingles, and perhaps worst 

 of all, for grape stakes. Let no one, whether 

 opposed to Prohibition or not, waste sympathy 

 on the California wine-growers, whose sad lot 

 it was last year the fashion to deplore. Grapes 

 in California command today two or three times 

 the price they ever brought before, and the 

 development of the vineyards is the most im- 

 mediate and threatening danger to the Red- 

 woods of California. These superb trees are 

 sacrificed to supply the stakes to carry vims, 

 because of the practically indestructible char- 

 acter of their wood, which will stand in the 

 ground almost indefinitely without rotting. 



Survey of the Redwoods in 1919 

 On August 7, 1919, Stephen Tyng Mather, 

 Director of National Parks, and the writer left 

 San Francisco to study the available Red- 

 wood stands with reference to the selection of a 

 site for a National Redwood Park, and to ob- 

 serve at first band the actual destruction in 

 progress. 



The first night brought the party to Willits, 

 beyond Ukiah in Mendocino County. Up to 

 this point there were few or no Redwoods 

 except the Montgomery grove, which lies to the 

 west of the highway. From Willits the highway 

 is under construction, and the Redwoods begin 

 to appear along the roadside in small and 

 scattered groups about fifty miles to the north. 



and while they are insignificant in comparison 

 with the great Humboldt groves, nevertheless 

 these trees are highly important in connection 

 with the highway and should be preserved. 



The highway itself has not been built with 

 an intelligent regard for the preservation of 

 natural features, and the usual wasteful and 

 destructive methods common to road contractors 

 are everywhere followed. 



In the construction of motor roads here and 

 elsewhere in California, and for that matter in 

 Oregon and Washington, the commissions in 

 charge should employ a landscape engineer; that 

 is. an engineer with some elemental sympathy 

 with nature should supervise the work. The 

 contractors should not be allowed to leave a 

 wide area of devastation adjoining the road- 

 way. Unnecessary vandalism, such as wrapping 

 wire cables around the bases of the trees to sup- 

 port derricks, should be stopped ; but. no doubt, 

 all this will come after the trees and the scenery 

 have been largely destroyed. 



As to the trees along the highway in Men- 

 docino County, the possibility of their pro- 

 tection depends entirely upon the action of the 

 Highway Commission in securing a right of way 

 which should not be less than an average width 

 of 300 yards. 



The Redwoods grove at Hicks Camp is the 

 first important camping site to be passed, and 

 about twelve miles south of Garberville is the 

 Sterns Camp grove, which is about ten acres in 

 extent with a width of about 300 yards, and 

 is a fine stand on a level flat. At this point it 

 becomes evident that any park in connection 

 with the highway must take in the entire erosion 

 valley of the south fork of the Eel from crest 

 to crest. The skyline witli its superb trees is 

 nearly as important as the flat bottom and much 

 more important than the intermediate area. The 

 river valley is narrow, in fact, little more than 

 a wide gorge, with a level bottom, and the timber 

 on the slopes has less commercial value than 

 that upon the flat. If the timber along the 

 highway is to be preserved, a relatively small 

 amount of additional cost would save the entire 

 valley. While it may not be necessary to go 

 far beyond the crest, nevertheless as the trees 

 are exposed a substantial amount of timber be- 

 hind probably will have to be taken to protect 

 them. 



There is a fine grove at Red Mountain, and a 

 little beyond the first cutting appears. 



At a point six miles south of Garberville the 

 first very large stand occurs. Here we were 

 shocked to learn that the California Highway 

 Commission not only had failed to acquire a 



