DESTROYING THE REDWOOD. 21 
“Having read newspaper and magazine articles and 
books of travel laudatory of everything here to a tire- 
some extent, I took the precaution to carry a tape-line, 
and propose to set down the sober results of measure- 
ment, and will leave the speculative and poetical depart- 
ments entirely out. 
“The men live in little houses scattered along a trout- 
stream near the mill, the stumps of the trees being in 
many instances as large as the houses. The mill-build- 
ing is forty by ninety feet, two stories high. The en- 
gine is sixty horse-power, having furnaces consuming 
less than half the sawdust and slabs produced—a car 
bears the surplus away to a pile always on fire. The 
gang of laborers is divided as follows: Sixteen men 
in the mill, eight in the woods, one cook, and four 
yokes of oxen. The wages for the eight Chinamen are 
twenty-six dollars per month; other common labor- 
ers, forty dollars. The engineers and sawyers receive 
from sixty to eighty dollars; and the axemen, who fell 
the trees, are paid eighty dollars per month—all being 
‘found.’ 
“The axeman is the most important man on the prem- 
ises, for the reason that if he is not expert in felling the 
timber great; annoyance and destruction would follow. 
The timber is soft and straight-grained, and splits better 
than chestnut. His axe is light, with a narrow blade, 
and a helve forty-two inches long. All trees are cut 
from two sides only; there is no girdling or haggling. 
He chops both right and left handed, yet has to reach a 
long way when the trees are very large. In contriving 
to throw the trees away from the mill or away from 
other timber, no matter how they lean, brings out the 
skill of the woodman. But he does it every time. Not 
only that, but his employers will wager that his skill is 
so great he will drive a stake, set one hundred and fifty 
feet distant, with the falling tree; and showed me where 
he dropped a ten-foot redwood exactly between two 
