2 14 A MANUAL OF THE CONIMM. 



were it not attested by reliable statistical facts. Saw mills and logging 

 camps are established along the coast, where the immense trunks are 

 reduced to useful timber with a prodigious waste of wood. More 

 destructive still are the operations of the sheep farmer, who fires the 

 herbage to improve the grazing, and whose flocks of tens of thousands 

 of sheep devour every green thing, and more effectually than the 

 locust." 



During the last quarter of a century the Anglo Saxon has been 

 ruthlessly carrying fire and the saw into the forests of California, 

 destroying what he could not use, and sparing neither young nor old, 

 and before a century is out, the two Sequoias may be known only as 

 herbarium specimens and garden ornaments ; indeed, with regard 

 to the " Big Trees," the noblest of the noble Coniferous trees, 

 the present generation, which has actually witnessed its discovery, may 

 live to say of it, that " The place that knew it shall know it no 

 more."* The Eedwood is, however, remarkable for its tenacity of 

 life, the stumps and roots of the felled trees throwing up for a long 

 time great numbers of vigorous suckers. 



The Sequoia sempervirens in England, notwithstanding that it 

 flourishes in a warmer climate in California than its gigantic congener, 

 is a fast-growing pyramidal or conical tree- of dark aspect. It has 

 a tendency to commence its growth very early in spring, and to 

 continue growing till late in the autumn, which renders it extremely 

 liable to injury by winter and spring frosts, so that the leader and 

 terminal shoots of the branches are sometimes destroyed ; the trunk 

 thence becomes forked, and the outline of the tree irregular ; the 

 foliage is frequently discoloured or " browned " from the same cause. 

 For these reasons the Eedwood has not been regarded with so much 

 favour as might have been expected from so remarkable a tree. It 

 is, however, a fine tree, which should be . included in every collection 

 of ornamental Conifers, and planted in every park where it can be 

 sheltered from cold piercing winds, and where a space with a minimum 

 radius of 25 to 30 feet can be allowed for it to develope its fine 

 proportions. A moist but well drained soil is the best for it, and, 

 as might be expected, . it thrives well in the neighbourhood of the 

 coast, in the south and south-west of England, and in the south and 

 west of Ireland. 



The specific name, sempervirens, " evergreen," refers to the persistent 

 foliage. 



Taxodium distichum. — A large tree with an erect trunk, from 

 80 to 120 feet high, and from 25 to 40 feet in circumference. "When 

 young it presents a pyramidal outline with slender spreading 



* Sir J. D. Hooker, Address to the Members of the Royal Institution, April, 1878. 



