rill-: nic Tin:i: .wn its nvoam 



9 



area of only ahoiK tilty siniarc miles. 

 This ari'a is hounded on tlir north hy 

 the American Hixcr. mikI on the south 

 by 1~)(MM- ('re(>k. and the total (Hstance 

 from the most northerly ,i;rou|) (Xorlli 

 (h'ove) to the most southerly (Tule 

 River Grove) is only 2()() miles. 'l'h(> 

 Kiiij2;'s River and Ka^^(Mdl Hiver drove 

 is tlu^ lari>;est both as to area and 

 numbca- of trees. Tlu* extent of this 

 district is four or five miles in width, 

 and ei^ht or ten miles in length. It has 

 a variation in altitude of 2500 feet. 

 It is an interesting fact that as one 

 proceeds from north to south the Big- 

 Trees flourish at higher and higher 

 altitudes. 



As might be inferred from its age the 

 Sequoia is tolerant of injuries and its 

 recuperative powers great, so that it 

 recovers from damage done by fires, 

 ancient and modern, that have 

 destroyed many other trees. Our own 

 specimen has suffered somewhat, but 

 Prof. Dudleys has recorded one whose 

 troubles date back to 245 A. D., at the 

 age of 516 when a forest fire inflicted a 

 wound, it took 105 years to cover. 

 The next 1200 years w^ere years of 

 peace, but in 1441 A. D., at 1712 years 

 of age, the tree was burned a second 

 time in two long grooves one and two 

 feet wide, respectively. Each had its 

 own system of repair. 139 years of 

 growth followed, including the time 

 occupied by covering the wounds. 

 1580 A. D., at 1851 years of age, 

 occurred another fire, causing a burn 

 on the trunk two feet wide, which took 

 56 years to cover with new tissue. 

 217 years of growth followed the burn. 

 1797 A. D., when the tree was 2,068 

 years old, a tremendous fire attacked it, 

 burning the great scar eighteen feet 

 wide. 103 years, between 1797 and 



!'.)()(), had enabled the tree to iv(hl(:e 

 the exposed area of the burn to about^ 

 fourteen feet in \vi(hh. it is to be 

 noted that in each of the three oldei- 

 bui-ns thei-e was a thin cavity oc-upied 

 l)y the ehai'coal of the burned surface, 

 but the wounds were finally fully 

 covennl and the new tissue above was 

 full, even, continuous and showed no 

 sign of distortion or of the old wound. 



The wood yielded l)y the Big Trees 

 whiU^ vast in quantity is rather indiff- 

 erent as to quality, being light, soft and 

 brittle, though it does possess one good 

 quality, that of durability in contact 

 with the soil. 



The methods of lumbering the Big 

 Trees are wasteful in the extreme, more 

 or less, of necessity. These huge 

 trees are usually shattered in falling, 

 but when they are not, logs of ten or 

 twenty feet in diameter are a little too 

 large to handle, so the fallen Sequoia is 

 by the use of dynamite reft Into pieces 

 large enough to handle, a process that 

 wastes about half the timber in a tree. 

 Still, as Mr. Huntington writes, ''3000 

 fence posts, sufficient to support a 

 wire fence around 8000 or 9000 acres, 

 have been made from one of these 

 giants, and that was only the first step 

 towards using its carcass. 650,000 

 shingles, enough to cover the roofs of 

 70 or 80 houses, formed the second 

 item of its product; finally there still 

 remained hundreds of cords of firewood 

 which no one could use because of the 

 prohibitive cost of hauling the wood 

 out of the mountains." 



Thus far the Sequoia in general 

 — our own particular tree which came 

 from the Kings River Grove, was 

 felled in 1891 and literally cut off in 

 the 1341st year of its gro^\i:h. This 

 to be sure is a good old age, as things 



