Spanish missionary, mentions seeing them, near where the town of 

 Santa Cruz, CaL, now stands. As such trees were entirely new to 

 him and his party, they received a Spanish name meaning red, from 



the color of the wood. , , i, i, ^ 



Unfortunately, redwood timber has been found to be ot excellent 

 quality. A forest of these trees will yield from one hundred thousand 

 to one million feet of timber. Incredible as it seems it has been found 

 necessary to protect these giant forests, both of Redwoods and Big 

 Trees from the lumberman's axe. "It is scarcely necessary to dwell 

 on the crime involved in the destruction of the oldest and tallest trees 

 on earth," says Madison Grant. 



"The cutting of a Sequoia for grape-stakes or railroad ties . . . 

 is like breaking up one's grandfather's clock for kindling to save the 

 trouble of splitting logs at the wood pile, or lighting one's pipe with 

 a Greek manuscript to save the trouble of reaching for matches." 



Thanks to the efforts of the "Save the Redwoods League," which 

 began its work in 1917, much has been done to rouse public sentiment 

 on the question, and to pave the way for establishing a Redwood Park. 

 America is greatly indebted to the National Geographical Society 

 for its co-operation with the Government in presenting to the people 

 for a park the Giant Forest of Big Trees which is the largest body of 

 trees of this kind in existence, and one of Nature's greatest marvels. 



One of the few Sequoias east of the Rocky Moimtains, and prob- 

 ably the only one of its age in the east, grows by the roadside in a field 

 in Delaware County, Penn., about twenty miles from Philadelphia. 



The tree is a true Sequoia Gigantea, but it is a mere infant of 

 its species, being probably between seventy-five and eighty years of 

 age, and was brought from California to one of the early botanists of 

 Pennsylvania, about the year 1850. Thirty-five feet in height and 

 with a circumference of two feet, it has a long life in prospect, pro- 

 vided it can withstand the occasional severity of eastern winters. 

 About half a mile distant, in the historic old botanic garden known as 

 Painters' Arboretum and formerly owned by the brothers Jacob and 

 Minshall Painter, is another Sequoia, S. sempervirens. This is a 

 Redwood, said to be the only survivor of six of its kind, which were 

 also brought from the Pacific coast, two of them for the Painters, and 

 the remainder for two other botanists, Evans and Meehan. 



80 



