THE AMERICAN FORESTS 849 



few decades attain a height of a hundred feet, 

 and the strongest of them would finally become 

 giants as great as the original tree. Gigantic 

 second and third growth trees are found in the 

 redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles 

 around charred ruins more than a thousand years 

 old. But not one denuded acre in a hundred is 

 allowed to raise a new forest growth. On the 

 contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition 

 of the neighborhood are brought into play to 

 prevent a new growth. The sprouts from the 

 roots and stumps are cut off again and again, 

 with zealous concern as to the best time and 

 method of making death sure. In the clearings 

 of one of the largest mills on the coast we found 

 thirty men at work, last summer, cutting off red- 

 wood shoots " in the dark of the moon," claiming 

 that all the stumps and roots cleared at this 

 auspicious time would send up no more shoots. 

 Anyhow, these vigorous, almost immortal trees 

 are killed at last, and black stumps are now their 

 only monuments over most of the chopped and 

 burned areas. 



The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. 

 It extends along the western slope, in a nearly 

 continuous belt about ten miles wide, from be- 

 yond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa 

 Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and 

 in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of 

 growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the 



