26 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



their bidding — choice guards, as they undoubtedly are, 

 stationed around springs and water supplies, they are, for 

 this very reason, all the poorer roadside or more intimate 

 rural companions. The continual timber supply capacity of 

 a redwood forest, under judicious care, is so prodigous as to 

 be simply incalculable; none but a suicidal and utterly 

 abandoned infanticidal policy, wantonly and untiringly 

 practiced, can ever blot them out. 



The timber is red, with a faint coppery or metallic irides- 

 cent gloss. Choice curl-grained wood is very ornamental for 

 cabinet finishing and similar work — takes a tine polish, 

 simply stained or varnished, it is far preferable to any paint; 

 the hues deepen to richer darker shades with age. AVell 

 matured heart-wood of the base of these trees is so solid and 

 heavy as to sink in water, L e. for a few saw-log " first cuts." 

 as the log-men express it; these will last for ages, under the 

 most trying circumstances, like cedars and yews. The upper 

 part of the same tree, on the contrary, is soft, exceedingly 

 light, though of like fine grain, only more brittle, but insects 

 seem never to trouble any of it. It is a great, and certainly 

 too common error, to choose timber by name rather than by 

 selecting the proper quality. During our earthquake expe- 

 riences we had occasion to examine many walls, all alike 

 laid upon redwood plank, in the lower made portion of the 

 gan Francisco city front. Some foundations, of just the same 

 age. were apparently nearly as perishable as poplar, while 

 others were as solid as so much cypress or cedar. Seasoning 

 alone, important as that is, like age for wine, will never 

 make the originally poor good. 



Probably, from a fair estimate of the redwood forests along 

 our coast, it would not comprise much more than about three 

 thousand square miles of timbered land. The already extinct 

 and too scattered portions are ignored in this estimate. This 

 Coast Range timber belt extends from the northern portion 

 of the State south to San Luis Obispo. Access to tide water, 

 great economic value, and universal use, have altogether, 

 doomed these mammoth cedars to a speedy destruction. 



The bark, reduced to bast, has been utilized for upholster- 

 ing — an excellent material. The woodman covers his cor- 

 duroy swamp passes and bridges with this very superior and 

 imperishable material. 



