The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-20
THE LUMBER INDUSTRY.

Those engaged in the redwood lumber
industry have at last awakened to a reali-
cation of the ruinous policy which they
have been pursuing for some years past
and have organized themselves into COM
bination to protect their interests. 1t is
notorious that they have been losing
money for years by undertaking among
themselves. AS result of their combina-
tion it is announced that they will advance
prices about So a thousand. No reasonable
person will grudge them the benefit which
this will bring them. In view of the com
petition which pine represents, there is no
danger that prices will be put to a pro-
hibitive figure.
This movement calls attention to some
important considerations which affect the
redwood interests of the State. The coun-
ties of Humb oldt, Sonoma, Mendocino
and Del Norte, with some assistance from
Santa Cruz, contain the only redwood TIM
Der in the world. Vast areas of these
splendid forests have already fallen before
the ak, but still larger areas of virgin
forest remain, to be attacked as railroad
facilities are extended. Even in Santa
Cruz County there remains vast store OF
the tim Der, the owners holding it against
destruction. Redwood is easily worked,
is the most durable of all building woods,
and under finish is almost as handsome as
mahogany. Avery remarkable popularity
of it is that it does not burn readily.
Its method of propagation is its most
wonderful quality, and in it lies the sugges-
ton for making it perpetual in the regions
to which it is indigenous. No sooner is a
tree destroyed than from the roots innu-
merable shoots are sent up and they begin
among themselves struggle for existence.
1t is common in redwood forests to find
remarkable circles formed by these trees,
which have grown up around the dead
parent that originally occupied the center.
1t is evident that as many times the num-
Der OF shoots spring up as can find room
for complete development the final recon-
struction of the forest is greatly retarded
by the struggle which must ensue. A
little care in thinning out the young trees
and guarding the woods against fire would
make our forests of redwood perpetual.
For that matter, as may be observed in
the Santa Cruz Mountains, particularly at
Forest Grove, ,on the narrowgauge rail
road. the forest has already reconstructed
itself without any such care, so that trees
now about 100 feet in height stand on
ground which was stripped twenty years
ago. This proves not only the wonderful
growth and vigor of the tree, but also the
ability of a forest TO reconstruct itself
without any aid and in the face of dis
asters against which forest of no other
kind of tree could stand. The conclusion
of all this is that although every standing
redwood tree in California may be cut
down and made into lumber the tree will
never be eXterminated and California will
remain forever in possession of this price
less treasure. No other building timber is
so tenacious Of life and no other perpetu-
ates itself with SO great pertinacity.
AZ the same time redwood forest, for
all that the wood itself is difficult to burn,
covers the ground with highly infam-
mable carpeting of twigs, cones and needles,
and the green boughs themselves burn
without great difficulty. Fire, then, is a
greater menace to the redwood than is the
ak. A fire will so scar an old tree as to
make an opening through the white sap
to the true red heart, and when that occurs
the red part will decay, leaving only a
shell of white wood and bark. Even thus
crippled the tree will live on Indefinitely,
but it's value as timber is gone.
1t is as much to the interest of the own
ers of redwood forests as of the people at
large to make the most stringent restrlc-
tons against the introduction of fire into
these forests. The subject is one demand
ing the attention OF the Legislature.