A STrUY OF THE REDWOOD. 13 



where the tree grows, is a sandstone, complicated at diflerent places 

 with a later stratum, and the soil has a clayey to sandy consistency, 

 greasy when wet, yellowish in color, and with a capacity for holding- 

 much water. Moisture available for the roots is the lirst need of the 

 Eedwood, as an}- hilly tract of forest will show, ^^'herever a small 

 gully, or bench, or basin is so placed as to receive an uncommon amount 

 of seepage, or wherever a creek flows by, there the trees are sure to 

 be largest. Even if the soil be not rich, but merely graA'el. and it 

 contain much moisture, the Redwood will grow more abundantly there 

 than on richer but drier ground. 



THE REDWOOD FOLLOWS THE FOGS. 



While moisture of the soil allects the development of the Eed- 

 wood, moisture of the atmosphere regulates its distribution. The 

 limits of the sea fogs are just about the limits of the tree. The fogs, 

 unless scattered by the winds, flow inward among the mountains. 

 Western exposures receive most of the mist thev cari'v, except those 

 higher ridges above their reach, which support, in consequence, only 

 a scattering growth of Redwood. Eastern and southern slopes, where 

 the sun is hot and the mists strike only occasionally, show few Red- 

 woods, and these are short and limby. 



THE QUALITY OF THE WOOD VARIES. 



The wood of the Redwood varies greath^. The softest and best trees 

 usually grow in the bottoms: the "flinty-' timber occurs on the slopes. 

 But this rule does not always hold good. Such fine tracts as those on 

 the Crescent City flats show all sorts of unexpected and unaccountable 

 dift'erences in the qualitv of the timber. A soft, fine-grained tree will 

 be found close beside one ' ' flinty " and less valuable. Even the practical 

 logger is never sure until he cuts it what kind of lumber a Redwood 

 will 3neld. The tree's vitality is so great, it endures so may vicissi- 

 tudes, and suffers from so many accidents in the centuries of its exist- 

 ence, that the grain of its wood becomes uneven in proportion as its 

 life has been eventful. Most Redwoods become windshaken, or. if 

 they escape this, the Avood fibers formed under different rates of 

 growth sometimes set up a tension so great that when the log is sawed 

 the wood splits with a loud report. 



THE LARGE REDWOODS OUTNUMBER THE SMALL ONES. 



The Redwood forest is of the selection type; that is. it contains trees 

 of widely varying ages in a single mixture, and keeps itself stocked by 

 reproduction under its own shade. But while in the usual selection 

 forest of other species the young trees far outnumber the mature ones, 

 in a virgin Redwood forest as much as 72 per cent of the trees have 

 been found to l^e above 20 inches in diameter. 



