Notes and Correspondence. 



Ill 



The Calaveras Big Tree Groves. 

 By Walter L. Huber. 

 The Calaveras Groves of Big Trees are located in Calaveras and 

 Tuolumne counties, some ten miles above the Mother Lode Mining 

 Belt. These groves have been known since the early mining days of 

 California and, in fact, w^ere the first groves of big trees {Sequoia 

 washingtoniana) to be discovered. (North Grove discovered by A. T. 

 Dowd in 1854.) 



The larger, known as South Grove, is in Tuolumne County. It 

 covers an irregular area of 441.5 acres along the narrow V-shaped 

 valley of Bigtree Creek, a tributary of the North Fork of Stanislaus 

 River. The North Grove has an area of 49.5 acres and occupies a small 

 basin drained by a tributary of San Antonio C."^"ek, which creek is 

 itself a tributary of Calaveras River. 



The two groves are only about six miles apart, but are separated 

 by a secondary divide from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and by the 

 canon of the North Fork of the Stanislaus River which is about one 

 thousand feet deep. North Grove is easily accessible by a wagon road 

 from Angels (twenty-two miles). South Grove i-^ reached only by 

 trail from a point on the wagon road near North Giove. 



Both groves are entirely in private ownership. Almost all of the 

 trees are owned by Mr. Robert Whiteside. Several attempts have 

 been made to have their ownership returned to the National govern- 

 ment. Congress has authorized the exchange for them of timber lands 

 of equal value, but the owner has been unwilling to entertain this 

 proposal. It is doubtful whether they can be obtained except by pur- 

 chase, and this method has not up to the present time been authorized 

 by Congress. These groves are a natural wonder well worthy of 

 preservation, and it is to be hoped that they can be acquired by the 

 Federal government and included in a National monument. 



There are in the two groves 862 big trees (excluding 3,462 big 

 trees less than thirty-six inches in diameter). Three individual trees 

 contain more than 100,000 board feet of lumber each. The diameters 

 of several trees exceed thirty feet and their heights are more than 

 three hundred feet. Mingled with the big trees are hundreds of splen- 

 did sugar pine, white fir and yellow pine trees. 



Kern Rrter Trail Improvement. 



Bakersfield, California, May 24, 1913. 



Mr. Wm. E. Colby, 



402 Mills Bldg., San Francisco, California. 



Dear Mr. Colby: I have submitted a plan for improving the trails in 

 the Monache country, as follows : 



A trail commencing at Kern Flats, Sec. i, T. 20 S., R. 33 E., and ex- 

 tending northeasterly through the following points to Carrol Creek, in 



