The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-03-19

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sequoias, or big trees of California, were
confined to a few small and isolated
groves like those known to tourists by
the names of Calaveras, Tuolumne, Mer-
ced, and Mariposa, scattered at con
siderable intervals along the western
slope of the mountains for distance OF
sixty miles. 1t was known that a collec.
tion of big trees larger than any of those
in the Maraposa and Calaveras regions
exists in Fresno county, where Thomas
Mill has for several years been saving
this redwood of the Sierra to supply the
market of Visalia, but it was dis
covered last summer that this body
of big-tree timber is not properly
a grove, but forest extending
for Z not less than seventy miles in
anorthwest and southeastward direction,
with width in some places of ten miles,
and interrupted only by the deep canons
which cut across the general course OF
the forest, and reduce the level to an ell
ovation below that at which the tree is
found in wild condition, although when
cultivated it thrives in all our valleys.
Different persons have traced the for
est from the basin of the Tule river, in
latitude 36 deg. 20 min, across those OF
the Kaweah and Kings to that of the San
joaquin. The elevation has not been
carefully measured, but is supposed to
vary from 1000 to 5000 feet AT one
point, and one only, this forest is acces-
sible by wagon road, and that is at
Thomas Mill, forty eight miles from vi
salia. Unlike the groves further north,
this forest consists mainly and in some
places almost exclusively of the big trees,
ones in all the ages of growth, some Just
sprouting, and others saplings only two
or three feet through. The largest stand
ing tree as yet measured is forty feet in
diameter cha1red stump-the tree
itself having disappeared--measures for
ty-one feet across. A tree twenty-four
feet in diameter, four feet above the
ground, is precisely the same thickness
sixty feet higher. A fallen trunk is hol-
low throughout its length, and the hole
is large enough to drive q horse and
buggy seventy-two feet in it as in tun-
mel.
This forest is SO extensive, the timber
is SO abundant and excellent in quality,
and the demand for it is SO great in the
bare valley at the foot of the mountain,
that it cannot be withheld from the ak
and the saw-mill. The wood is similar
in general character to the coast sequoi,
or common redwood, straight in grain,
splitting freely, even enough in grain for
fnrniture, and far superior to oak in its
keeping qualities in positions exposed to
alterations of moisture. The Sierra Sc
qsteiU does not throw up sprouts from its
stump as does the redwood, and can
therefore be felled out more readily. 1t
was wise in Congress to make q reserva-
ton for pleasure purposes of the Mar
ipoSl Grove, which is near Yosemite,
small and conveniently accessible to tour
lists by the present routes of travel but
the Tulare- Fresno forest-it is all in those
two counties cannot be converted into q
public reservation Numerous sawmills
will be built on its line, and fumes will
carry the lumber down to the consumers.
Wagon-roads viii ascend from the rail
road turns to the California Alps, passing
through the forest and receiving great
attractions from it. San Francisco Alta.