70 MISC. PUBLICATION 295, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 



Clyde H. Pitney, secretary of the Gridley District Chamber of Com- 

 merce, in a letter to the Forest Service elated February 20, 1920. 



A sugar pine on the Tahoe National Forest has a circumference 

 of over 34 feet and is 235 feet tall, according to a field report of forest 

 supervisors in connection with the preparation of a sugar pine 

 monograph. 



Joe Elliott giant sugar pine, the largest known conifer in southern 

 California, dedicated to Joe Elliott, supervisor of the San Bernar- 

 dino National Forest. 1929 to 1935, by the residents of San Bernar- 

 dino County. This giant tree is 23 feet in circumference and 140 feet- 

 high. This tree story comes from Forest Region 5, bulletin, October 

 18, 1935. 



Another writer (25) says : 



All who have entered or left Yosemite National Park by way of Stockton or 

 Tioga Pass over the Big Oak Flat Highway will remember the trip for one 

 reason — the magnificent forest of immense sugar and yellow pines that line the 

 road from Tuolumne Sequoia Grove to Carl Inn. 



A ponderosa pine on the Shasta National Forest has a circumfer- 

 ence of 23 feet 1 inch, according to Alvin E. Noren, forest ranger on 

 the Modoc National Forest, which adjoins the Shasta National Forest. 



A lodgepole pine on Mammoth Trail, near Granite Stairway, Si- 

 erra National Forest, has a circumference of nearly 22 feet and a 

 height of 80 feet, as reported by Supervisor Paul G. Eedington and 

 Ranger W. R. Taylor, of the Sierra National Forest, September 2, 

 1912. 



Sequoia, a genus of pinaceous trees, named in honor of Sequoiah, 

 who invented the Cherokee alphabet, has only two species — 8. wash- 

 ingtoniana, the bigtree of California, and S. sempervirens, the red- 

 wood of Oregon and of California. S. washing toniana was formerly 

 designated as S. gigantea and at present by some authors as S. well- 

 ingtonia. Sequoia, heroic figure of the tree world, widely scattered 

 with several species over the Northern Hemisphere during the Creta- 

 ceous and Tertiary epochs, is now confined to the coast of Oregon and 

 California and the mountains of California. The redwood occurs in 

 southwestern Oregon and southward near the coast to Monterey 

 County, but is rarely found more than 20 to 30 miles from the coast 

 or beyond the influence of ocean fogs, or over 3,000 feet above sea 

 level (fig. 33). 



The bigtree is found on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada 

 at elevations of 5,000 to 8,400 feet above sea level (62). 



The result of the work of several engineers to settle rival claims for 

 the honor of possessing the largest tree in the world, gives General 

 Sherman Bigtree a volume of 600.120 board feet ; General Grant Big- 

 tree, 542,784 board feet; Boole Bigtree, 496,728 board feet; and Hart 

 Bigtree, 410,952 board feet (100). 



According to the latest reports, General Sherman Bigtree (Sequoia 

 w ashing toniana) (fig. 34), Sequoia National Park, has a diameter of 

 36% feet or a circumference of nearly 115 feet, a height of 272.4 

 feet, a volume of 600,120 board feet, and it is between 3,000 and 4,000 

 years old. The sequoias were measured by engineers representing the 

 California State and Fresno Chambers of Commerce (18, 19, 3%, 51, 

 88,96,102). 



General Grant Bigtree, General Grant National Park (43, 51, 99), 

 has a base circumference variously estimated at from 106 to 125 feet. 



