Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1856-08-22
The Cedars of California.

writes from California to the New
York Independent graphic ac.
count of the immense cedars OF
California, the greatest trees in the
world. One of them, which had
been felled, he ascerlained, by
counting the grains of the stump,
to be twelve hundred and eighty
years old. When Mahomet was at
nurse this tree was sprouting. Says
the reverend gentleman
1t is forest, yet nothing that we
mean by forest. There is no under
growth, scarcely anywhere a rock
the surfaces are as beautifully turn
ed as il shaped by landscape gard
ener, and dotted all over by myriads
of flowers, more delicate, if not
more various, than any garden ever
grew. Moving along these surfaces.
rounding over hill, or galloping
through some silent valley, winding
here among the native oaks casting
their round shadows, and here a.
mong tall pines and cedars drawing
their huge conical shapes on the
ground, we seem, in fact, to be rid
ing through some vast park. In
deed, after we had seen the trees
and taken their impression, we could
think of nothing but to call it the
park of the Lord Almighty. The
other trees we observed were in
creasing in size as we neared the
place, till finally, descending gently
along western slope among the
files of little giants, we came to the
gate of the real giants, emerging
into the cleared ground of the Big
Tree Hotel between the two sem
tinels, which are 500 feet high, and
stand only far enough apart for the
narrow road 10 pass between These
were the first Of the Washington
cedars we had seen It really seem
ed that we had never seen tree
before. And yet they were only
medium specimens.
Close by the house lay the frs
cut of the Big Tree par eminence
The remaining part, or top, had beer
split upand removed. Near this frs
cut stood the stump, about six fee
high, with an arbor mounted on The
top, which had been squared dowr
for this purpose, the posts of tn,
arbor standing out in the line of tn,
largest circuit at the ground, anc
the space between them and the
circuit at the top filled in by foo
OF short boards. The diameter o
the top is by measurement twenty
five feet one way, and twenty-five,
and one half feet the other. Th,
diameter, at the ground, was thirty
one feet. They are all included il
space of about fifty acres, and ar,
only about ninety in number. Tn
ground occupied is a rich, wet bot
tom, and the foot Of the moist north
ern slope adjacent, covered ais
with an underground. And VIII,
are they here, just here, and NJ
whore else This, | confess, is I,
me the greatest wonder of all, tina
nowhere in the whole earth is Their,
another known example of thes,
Anakims of the forest, ninety seed
alone have been started, ninety anC
no more. is there, was there nc
other piece of ground but Just this
in the whole world, that could fill
take the seeds of such growth
why have they never spread, VIII,
has no one seed of the myriad
they sprinkle every year on tn
earth, ever started in any other 10
calityl
And what a starting it is, whel
such seed of life begins to grow
Little did that tiny form of matte
about the size Of parsnip seed, an
looking more like it than any othe
imagine what it was going to d.
what feelings to excite, when
started the first sproutings of III
Big Tree ! We measured an emo
nous sugar pine recently felled. -
Sixty feet from the ground it wa
six feet in diameter, and il was tw
hundred and forty feet high. W
measured one Of the piostra,e giant
and two hundred and forty fe,
from the ground it was six f.. in dii
meter The top was gone, but
could not have been less than thre
hundred and fifty feet high. An
yet this tree was only eighteen fc,
~ d'ameier where the Big TIRE