BOTANY. 93 
feet in diameter six feet above the ground; and others equally 
large are found in the northwestern part of the state. Trees 
two hundred and fifty feet high and eight feet through are 
not rare. The wood is very straight-grained, free-splitting, 
durable, soft, and light. So freely does it split, that boards 
twenty fect long, eight inches wide, and an inch thick, are 
sometimes made from it with the frow. No wood in the world 
splits so beautifully and regularly. There is no better wood for 
the general use of the farmer, and it is the chief building ma- 
terial of the coast. No timber is more durable either above or 
below ground. The color is a rich dark-red, which, when var- 
nished, makes a fine appearance in furniture. The tree grows 
in dense forests, which contain an immense amount of timber. 
Thus, on the plain southeast of Crescent City, there are hun- 
dreds of acres of land of which every fifteen feet square, on an 
average, supports 4 tree three feet through and two hundred 
and twenty-five fect high—a statement that may appear in- 
credible to those who have seen only the forests east of the 
Mississippi River. These trees will often furnish twenty saw- 
logs, each ten feet long, and every acre will supply material to 
make one million feet of sawn lumber, which, at the low rate 
of fifteen dollars per one thousand feet, is worth fifteen thou- 
sand dollars. The redwood stump, after the tree has been 
cut down, throws out a number of shoots, one or two of which 
choke down the weaker ones and become large trees. A red- 
wood forest is almost inexterminable. 
§ 68. 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 East- 
crn states; “though,” as Dr. Newberry says, “like all the 
conifers on the Pacific coast, it exhibits a symmetry and perfec- 
tion 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 diam- 
