14S It ED WOOD FORESTS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 



midity. The species seems to require for its development a 

 rather nice adjustment of temperature and moisture conditions, 

 which are not found elsewhere, and, as will be seen later, do not 

 at present fully meet the needs of the species, even in its present 

 habitat. 



This is probably the densest forest on earth, as measured by 

 the amount of merchantable timber — that is, of timber suitable 

 for the saw-mill — contained per acre. It is not the size of the 

 trees alone which produces this, although they are exceptionally 

 large, even in this state of large things, but it is the great num- 

 ber of trees on each acre, the closeness of their stand. In a red- 

 wood forest the sun never shines — it is always twilight. You 

 are. as it were, under the roof of a vast temple, a roof of foliage, 

 supported by great tree columns. 



In order to obtain a conception of the enormous stand of 

 timber in the redwood strip, let me commence with some fa- 

 miliar examples for comparison. 



The great pineries of the southern states contain, on an aver- 

 age, about 5,000 feet, board measure, of standing timber per 

 acre. Of white pine the heaviest county in Minnesota is esti- 

 mated to contain an average of 5,000 feet, while others, regarded 

 as forested, contain 1,000 to 2,000 feet; and a tract containing 

 10,000 feet per acre is regarded as heavily forested. Contrast 

 these figures with the following : The average stand of redwood 

 upon 173,000 acres in Mendocino county is 44,000 feet per acre. 

 There is here nearly nine times as much timber on an acre as in 

 the southern pineries; yet even this is exceeded in Humboldt 

 count} 7 ". Upon 96,443 acres in this county the average stand is 

 84,000 feet per acre, nearly seventeen times as great as in the 

 southern states. The lumber companies around Eureka, Cali- 

 fornia, the principal center of the redwood industry, have real- 

 ized, since they commenced operations, an average of between 

 75,000 and 100,000 feet per acre, and one of these companies 

 has for ten years cut an average of 84,000 feet per acre of red- 

 wood alone, besides fir and spruce, which would increase the 

 amount to nearly 100,00) feet. These last figures are not in any 

 way estimates, but the actual products of the mills. The dis- 

 proportion is even greater than appears here, for the standard 

 for lumber used in the redwood country is much higher than in 

 the east, and consequently the estimates of the amount of timber 

 are correspondingly less. For instance, whereas in the east logs 



