542 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 247. 



day's ride up the mountain from Visalia. To make trans- 

 portation possible it was split into twelve sections, the 

 centre-piece being round, and eleven others radiating from 

 it. It is an admirable specimen, with perfect grain and 

 apparently no wind-checks, although through one of the 

 sections there is a narrow decayed tunnel something like 

 eighteen inches long and an inch or two in width. Outside 

 of this, however, the trunk is perfectly solid, and this decay 

 probably came from some injury to the trunk, which may 

 have been bruised by a falling tree; andif we can estimate 

 time by annual rings of growth the accident happened at 

 about the date when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. 

 Mr. S. D. Dill, who has prepared all the specimens for this 

 great e.xhibition, is now riveting the segments of the giant 

 trunk together with great iron bolts, so that it will -be per- 

 fectly solid when it is finally ready for its position in the 

 centre of the collection. 



The tree from which this trunk section was cut was one 

 of a few trees left standing of a once magnificent Sequoia- 

 grove, and the stumps about it show that their growth was 

 very large, one not far from this tree being forty feet in 

 diameter. The remains of the old mill which has turned 

 these venerable trees into lumber is still there, but other 

 mills are at work cutting from 125,000 to 130,000 feet every 

 day. It may be said that the Converse Basin tract of 

 Sequoias, which belongs to the King's River Lumber Com- 

 pany, is about ten miles back from the place where this tree 

 was cut, and Mr. Moore, the Superintendent of the com- 

 pany, estimates that there is enough of that one kind of tim- 

 ber on the tract to keep these mills running at their present 

 capacity for fifty years. When the trees which stand high 

 up on the slopes of caiions are felled the logs are cut off 

 into proper lengths. They are then blown apart by dyna- 

 mite into halves, quarters and eighths, and a powerful 

 steam-engine, with a steel cable, draws this split timber down 

 to a greased tramway of round peeled logs, over which they 

 are shot away to the mill, near the mouth of the canon. 

 They are then sawed up into lumber of proper sizes and 

 floated down through a V-shaped flume from the mill to 

 the railroad, sixty-two miles away. This flume is supplied 

 by a large reservoir in the mountains. Although when dry 

 the Sequoia is one of the lightest of American woods, it is 

 very heavy when full of sap, and will not float readily until 

 it is seasoned, so that the timber needs to lie some time be- 

 fore it is floated out of the mountain. The lumber looks 

 very much like redwood, and is sold under this name. 

 Indeed, it is only distinguished from redwood by the eye 

 of an expert. 



This particular tree was called "Mark Twain," and 

 girthed sixty-two feet at eight feet from the ground and 

 ninety feet at the surface. It was a straight, handsome 

 tree some three hundred feet high, and without a limb for 

 about two hundred feet from the ground. Mr. Moore 

 estimated that it contained four hundred thousand feet of 

 lumber, and the specimen cut, four and a half feet long, 

 weighed over thirty tons. It took two men about three 

 weeks to cut it down. The axemen chopped out deep 

 notches on the opposite sides of the tree, leaving a com- 

 paratively narrow strip through the centre untouched. A 

 notch was then cut at one end of this centre-piece on the 

 side toward which the tree was to fall, as seen in the illus- 

 tration (page 546). Two long cross-cut saws were then 

 welded together and the vi^orkmen began to saw in hori- 

 zontally opposite the cut last mentioned, and wedges were 

 driven in until the tree toppled over. It was while the 

 tree was in the act of falling that the photograph from 

 which this illustration was taken was made by Mr. C. C. 

 Curtiss. The other illustration (see p. 547) gives some idea 

 of the size of the tree at the ground. Fifty men of the 

 Lumber Company's force are here seen standing out on the 

 sap-wood and bark of the stump, and the tools with which 

 the giant was overthrown lie in the centre, where there is 

 easily room for a hundred more men. Of course, the butt 

 of the log that fell was sawn off above the bevel made by 

 the axes, and in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the log. 



so that the bottom of the specimen in the museum represents 

 a cut about ten feet from the ground. A section of the log 

 next above this has been secured as a specimen for the 

 British Museum. 



Every lover of nature must be rejoiced at the fact that 

 the National Government has taken possession of several 

 of the most extensive groves of Big Trees that remain in Cali- 

 fornia, so that they cannot pass into private hands and be 

 turned into lumber, a fate vi'hich has already befallen so 

 man)' of these oldest and noblest inhabitants of our moun- 

 tain forests. 



Public Forests and Public Parks. 



"PjR. EDWARD EVERETT HALE has an interesdng article 

 -•-^ in the November Cosmopolitan on Epping Forest, which 

 was restored to the public in the year 1882, after a long 

 and stubborn contest, the corporation of the city of London 

 conducting the fight in behalf of the people. The forest once 

 covered an enormous territory, and at the time of the Long Par- 

 liament its area was still sixty thousand acres. This had been 

 steadily encroached upon, and when the contest for its resto- 

 ration began in 1871 the greater portion of it had been appro- 

 priated to private uses. When it was finally restored its area 

 amounted to nearly nine square miles, or something over five 

 thousand acres, still a magnificent domain, of about the same 

 length, and somewhat larger, than the territory which it is pro- 

 posed to convert into a public open space at the Blue Hills of 

 Massachusetts, near Boston. The Blue Hills, however, or the 

 Massachusetts Forest, as perhaps it may appropriately be called, 

 since these hills gave the state its name, are very different in 

 character from the Epping Forest, and, being of a mountain- 

 ous nature, would be a grander possession for the people of 

 Boston than Epping is for London. 



Epping Forest had its origin as a public domain in the fact 

 of its being common land. Many commons still exist in Eng- 

 land as survivals of a primitive communal system — an institu- 

 tion that was transferred to New England by the early settlers, 

 whereabout the only traces now left are to be found in the 

 local commons of various old cities and towns, that of Boston 

 being the most prominent. Dr. Hale remembers, for instance, 

 when cows were pastured and carpets were beaten on Boston 

 Common, and although these practices were later forbidden 

 by city ordinances, he thinks that very likely, if tested in the 

 courts, those rights would be found yet to exist. The right of 

 commonage in England still carries with it a great many priv- 

 ileges for the communities possessing it, and in the case of 

 Epping Forest its exercise interferes considerably with the uses 

 of the place for public recreation. The inhabitants of the 

 neighboring villages are the commoners, and they pasture 

 their cows, oxen and horses there, a practice which interferes 

 with the undergrowth and the lower growth of trees. Goats 

 and sheep, however, are said to be " non-commonable." 



Another right of the commoners, that of " lopping," enables 

 them to lop for fuel in fagots any branch not bigger than a 

 man's finger. As firewood is valuable in that part of the 

 world, this privilege was availed of to its utmost extent, greatly 

 to the damage of the trees ; therefore, under the new regime, 

 the villages have been persuaded to surrender this right for 

 certain other privileges and the sum of £j,ooo. Considerable 

 damage is still done by forest-fires, set either carelessly or 

 wantonly. 



The forest is the favorite place of recreation for the people 

 of London, and the railway's carry excursionists thither at fares 

 of a shilling for the round trip to and from the various sta- 

 tions, with half-fares for children. Sunday is a favorite day 

 for excursions, and men go from London very largely in clubs, 

 making special arrangements for picnic places, which are re- 

 served for them. In making its application, each club has to 

 be represented by some one who is responsible for the ob- 

 servance of the park regulations. The maintenance of order 

 is entrusted to a chief and thirteen keepers. In winter and 

 spring one hundred additional men are engaged as a sort of 

 foresters, while in summer only fifty, or thereabout, are 

 needed. The keepers have comfortable houses provided for 

 them, free of rent, in various parts of the forest, and are al- 

 lowed, besides, twenty-five shillings a week, while the other 

 men are paid twenty shillings a week. 



The roads are kept in order by the regular highway authori- 

 ties. Of the roads Dr. Hale says that they are never finished with 

 the "absurd detail which so often deforms American parks," 

 but in good enough order for any practical purpose. "There 

 is, however, no fiddle-faddle weeding of the edges or cutting 

 out of occasional brambles, such as our park-makers fancy." 



