History of California

Chapter XII

“The Groves Were God’s First Tem­ples”

If the peo­ple of this cen­tu­ry con­tin­ue the de­struc­tion of trees as they are do­ing at present, a hun­dred years from now this will be a world with­out forests, a wood­less, tree­less waste. What a des­olate pic­ture is this! What a grave charge will the peo­ple of the fu­ture have to bring against us that we reck­less­ly de­stroy the trees, one of God’s most beau­ti­ful and use­ful gifts to man, with­out even an en­deav­or to re­place the loss by re­plant­ing!

Dur­ing the last hun­dred years the Amer­ican lum­ber belt has moved west­ward over a wide space. In the ear­ly days of our his­to­ry near­ly the en­tire sup­ply came from Maine, and what in­ter­est­ing sto­ries we have of those brave pi­oneer log­gers and set­tlers! Grad­ual­ly the no­ble woods which fur­nished the tall, smooth masts for which Amer­ican ships were fa­mous, were de­stroyed; and the ring­ing ax blows were then heard in the forests about the Great Lakes and in the mid­dle South­ern states. This sup­ply is by no means ex­haust­ed, but to-​day the heart of the lum­ber in­ter­est is on the Pa­cif­ic coast.

Around the great cen­tral val­ley which is drained by the Sacra­men­to and the San Joaquin rivers, six hun­dred and forty miles long, lie moun­tain ranges on whose slopes are some of the no­blest forests of the world. To the north of the cen­tral val­ley the trees of the east and west join, form­ing a heav­ily wood­ed belt quite across the state.

In the trade, the great­est de­mand is for lum­ber of the pine and fir trees, and of these Cal­ifor­nia has as many species as Eu­rope and Asia com­bined. She has, in­deed, on­ly a lit­tle less than one fifth of all the lum­ber sup­ply of the Unit­ed States. Her most valu­able tree for com­merce is the sug­ar pine. It at­tains a di­am­eter of twelve feet or more and is of­ten two hun­dred feet high. But the most in­ter­est­ing trees of Cal­ifor­nia and of the world are the Se­quoias, the old­est of all liv­ing things. Very far back, in the time of which we have no writ­ten his­to­ry, in the moist days of gi­gan­tic veg­eta­tion and an­imals, the Se­quoias cov­ered a large por­tion of the earth’s sur­face; then came the great ice over­flow, and when that melt­ed away, al­most the on­ly things liv­ing of the days of gi­ants were the Se­quoias of mid­dle and up­per Cal­ifor­nia, and those on some two thou­sand acres over the Ore­gon line.

The Se­quoia sem­per­virens, which is com­mon­ly called red­wood, is dis­tribut­ed along the Coast Range, the trees thriv­ing on­ly when they are con­stant­ly swept by the sea fogs. For lum­ber this tree is near­ly as valu­able as the sug­ar pine. From Eu­re­ka to San Diego, this is the ma­te­ri­al of which most of the hous­es are built. Be­cause of its rich col­or and the high pol­ish it takes, es­pe­cial­ly the curly and grained por­tions, its val­ue for cab­inet work is be­ing more and more ap­pre­ci­at­ed. On ac­count of the pres­ence of acid and the ab­sence of pitch and rosin in its com­po­si­tion, it re­sists fire and is there­fore a safe wood for build­ing. When the Bald­win Ho­tel in San Fran­cis­co, a six-​sto­ry build­ing of brick and wood, burned down, two red­wood wa­ter tanks on the top of the on­ly brick wall that was left stand­ing, were found to be hard­ly charred and quite wa­ter-​tight.

It is the red­wood which fur­nish­es the largest boards for the lum­ber trade. Not long ago a man in the lum­ber re­gion built his of­fice of six boards tak­en from one of the trees. The boards were twelve by four­teen feet, and there was one for each wall, one for the floor, and one for the ceil­ing. Win­dows and doors were cut out where de­sired.

In the heart of the red­wood and pine forests there are some thir­ty mill plants, and they own about half of the tim­ber dis­trict. The meth­ods of lum­ber­ing are ex­ceed­ing­ly waste­ful. Scarce­ly half of the stand­ing tim­ber of a tract is tak­en by the log­gers and what is left is of­ten burned or to­tal­ly ne­glect­ed. Re­plant­ing is un­thought of and the young trees are treat­ed as a nui­sance.

Three fourths of the forests of Cal­ifor­nia grow up­on side hills, gen­er­al­ly with an in­cline of from fif­teen to thir­ty de­grees. When the trees are gone, there­fore, the rain soon wash­es away the soil, leav­ing the rocks bare. When the next rainy sea­son comes, the wa­ter, not be­ing able to sink in­to the earth, and so grad­ual­ly find its way to the streams, rush­es down the hill­sides in tor­rents, flood­ing the small­er wa­ter cours­es. Then the rivers rise and over­flow, caus­ing great dam­age to prop­er­ty; but their wa­ters quick­ly sub­side, and when the dry sea­son comes they have not suf­fi­cient depth for the pas­sage of ships of com­merce. The to­tal de­struc­tion of the forests would soon de­stroy the nav­iga­bil­ity of the prin­ci­pal wa­ter high­ways of the state, while an­oth­er se­ri­ous re­sult would be the less­en­ing of the wa­ter sup­ply for ir­ri­ga­tion.

The sec­ond va­ri­ety of the Se­quoia, the gi­gan­tea, or “big tree,” as it is called, grows much far­ther in­land than the red­wood, be­ing found on the west­ern slopes of the Sier­ras. There are ten sep­arate groves of these trees, from the lit­tle com­pa­ny of six in south­ern Plac­er Coun­ty to the south­ern­most Se­quoia, two hun­dred and six­ty miles away on the Tule Riv­er. The whole put to­geth­er would not make more than a few hun­dred thou­sand of ex­tra-​sized trees, and of the gi­ants them­selves not more than five hun­dred. These rise as high as three hun­dred and fifty feet, and are from twen­ty to thir­ty feet through. Near the Yosemite the stage road pass­es through the hol­low cen­ter of one of those mon­sters. In a grove owned by the gov­ern­ment some cav­al­ry men, with their hors­es, lined up on a “big tree” log, and it eas­ily held four­teen, each horse’s nose touch­ing the next one’s tail.

How old these trees may be is yet un­set­tled, but Mr. John Muir, their in­ti­mate friend and com­pan­ion, tells of one which was felled which showed by its rings that it was 2200 years old. An­oth­er which had blown down was ful­ly 4000 years old. Lat­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion makes it seem not un­like­ly that some have ex­ist­ed for even 5000 years. It seems a sin to de­stroy a liv­ing thing of that age.

The great basin of the San­ta Cruz Moun­tains, which con­tains a large col­lec­tion of the Se­quoia sem­per­virens, be­longs to the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment. So, too, do the Mari­posa grove of Se­quoia gi­gan­tea, and the Gen­er­al Grant park, and Tuolumne grove, each of which con­tains a small num­ber of fine spec­imens of the big trees. These prop­er­ties will be pro­tect­ed, but all oth­er groves, in which are the gi­ant Se­quoias, are in great dan­ger. There has re­cent­ly been a move­ment by the gov­ern­ment to­ward pur­chas­ing the Calav­eras grove, which has the finest col­lec­tion of the big trees known, but noth­ing de­cid­ed has been done. Mean­time there are a num­ber of mills en­gaged in de­vour­ing this no­ble for­est.

Un­less the peo­ple of Cal­ifor­nia take up the mat­ter with earnest­ness and en­er­gy, the state and the Unit­ed States will stand dis­graced be­fore mankind for let­ting these won­ders of the world, these largest and old­est of all liv­ing things, be de­stroyed for the lum­ber they will make. They should be pur­chased by the gov­ern­ment and pro­tect­ed, then some move­ment should be start­ed in all lum­ber dis­tricts by which waste in log­ging may be done away with, young trees pro­tect­ed and cleared, and for­est land re­plant­ed with suit­able trees. The law ex­clud­ing cat­tle and sheep from the forests is al­ready prov­ing its wis­dom by the new growth of young trees. On­ly among the gi­ant Se­quoias of the Tule and King’s Riv­er dis­trict are there to be found ba­by trees of that species.

The lum­ber trade is one of the most in­ter­est­ing and nec­es­sary in­dus­tries of the state. Work in the camp is health­ful and well paid. Many a del­icate boy or young man in the city would grow strong and healthy and live a much longer time if he would cast his lot with the hardy chop­pers and cut­ters of the great for­est of the Pa­cif­ic slope. A log­ging crew con­sists of thir­ty men, in­clud­ing two cooks. The dis­ci­pline is as rigid as that of a mil­itary sys­tem; each man knows his own par­tic­ular du­ties, and must at­tend to them prompt­ly and faith­ful­ly. Trees are not chopped down, as used to be the cus­tom; with the ex­cep­tion of a lit­tle chop­ping on ei­ther edge, a saw run by two men does the work. Ox­en are sel­dom used, as in ear­ly days on the At­lantic coast, to haul out the logs, for they have giv­en way to “don­keys,”–not the long-​eared, loud-​voiced lit­tle an­imals, but the pow­er­ful, com­pact don­key-​en­gines.

Lum­ber schooners and steam­ers are the chief fea­tures of our coast traf­fic. Al­most all the large cities of the Pa­cif­ic coast owe their foun­da­tion and pros­per­ity to this trade. San Fran­cis­co and Eu­re­ka in Hum­boldt Coun­ty are the prin­ci­pal ports of the trade. Men­do­ci­no has a rock-​bound coast, with no har­bors, but she has fine forests. Here the lum­ber steam­er se­cures its car­go by means of sus­pend­ed wire chutes as trol­leys. The out­er end of the trol­ley wire is an­chored in the ocean, the wire cross­es the deck of the moored steam­er, the slack be­ing tak­en up to the ship’s gaff, thus mak­ing a tight wire up and down which the trol­ley car with its load is sent.

Some­times a great raft made of lum­ber is tak­en in tow by a steam­er load­ed with the same ma­te­ri­al and they start on a voy­age down the coast, but this is a dan­ger­ous ven­ture. If the sea be­comes rough the raft may break loose from the steam­er and go plung­ing over the waves, no one knows where. The brave cap­tains of our coast­ing ves­sels fear noth­ing so much as a tim­ber raft adrift which may crash in­to a ves­sel at any mo­ment and against which there is no way of guard­ing.