The San Francisco call., 1898-08-23


 serve as fuel for the next forest fire that starts. The trunk, according to Its length, Is saWn into three or four logs of from eighteen to twenty feet in length. Then the steam engine comes into play and go where you will In these woods you cannot get far away from machinery. A large donkey en- zine. or, as they call 1t up here, a bull donkey, is within reach, perhaps one or two thousand feet away, and a long wire cable hauls the log over all obstacles to the roadway. Here 1t Is placed on the chutes. kind of raised wooden slide. down which the traction engine drags it to the mill.
 The yellow pine. next In importance to the sugar pine, has not the same antiquity. It Is very slow grower and is supposed to attain an age of 25O years. There Is always. 1t should be observed, a good deal of doubt about the real age of a tree, because experts differ. Some assert that you can tell the age by counting the rings, or diff ferent layers of wood In the trunk, each of which is presumed to represent a years growth. It Is easy to do this after the tree is cut down, but while 1t is still standing the age is only a matter of guess. Other experts deny the value of the ring test altogether and advocate some other method. the working of which Is quite incompre- hensible to the outsider.
 Evidently the era of yellow pine in this State has not yet passed The tree comes up readily enough and if the young plantations were properly looked after permanent supply of this tim Der could be secured. The same with the fir and spruce and cedar trees. Oaks, which nobody wants very much and least of all the big lumberman. will come up anywhere. It is a singu- lar fact that if you clear a piece of land on which only pine has been grow ing the chances are that oaks will spring up. l have seen similar thing happen in the Pacific islands, where when you strip the bush of its natural foliage, breadfruit trees are certain to appear. Where do these groWths come from? Scientists are at a loss for an answer Probably the germs have lain dormant in the ground for centuries, waiting for a chance to make their vitality known.
 The operations of the Scott &, Van Arsdale corporations, which Is only one of the big milling concerns which form the lumber combine about which so much has been heard lately, are sim ply enormous. The head of the whole concern Is the firm of Scott & Van Ars- dale, which has it's office in the Crocker | quote from the firms own business card) the following corporations: The Sfshyou Lumber and Mercantile Com pany of Sisson. the Scott & Van Arms dale Lumber Company of Fifth and Grammar streets, San Francisco; the Scott & Van Arsdale Box Factory of Upton, the Folsom Box Factory of Fol- som. As If these were not enough en- terprises to handle, the firm is agent for the McCloud River Railroad Com pany, the McCloud River Lumber Com pany and the A. Weed Lumber Com pany. It is tremendous aggregation of lumber interests, but the work mainly centerS on the McCloud prop- erty, reached by the company's private railway. This line in itself is a splen- did piece of engineering work. It starts from Upton, right under Mount Shasta, and winding round the foothills at the base of the giant crag switches itself up and down the steep hillsides, going now forward and now backward. until the comparatively level country of the logging camp Is reached. a dis tance of eighteen miles. Every day sees long line of laden cars leave the place for San Francisco; every day hundreds of noble trees are felled in the forest.
 The company owns or controls some 300, 900 acres of the finest timber land in the State. and, with the exception of few months in winter, the work will go on continuously year in and year out, until the whole land within a ra- dius of ten miles has been stripped. A number of smaller mills in the neigh borhood hang like parasites on the Hanks of the great corporation All their lumber comes to McCloud. where it is handled by the company, dried and shipped to this city. Altogether the average daily production of lumber by the company and it's tributaries Is from 250,000 to S00,000 feet Besides this an enormous quantity of fireWood is split for the use of the Southern Pacific Railway Company. The work forms an entirely separate branch of the trade, for 1t Is mainly carried out under con tract by foreigners-Portugue or Ital- ians.
 The box factory at Upton Is another enormous consumer of lumber. With the aid of modern machinery it turns out some twelve thousand boxes a day and uses up about 15 ,000, ,000 feet of lum Der yearly. This box industry Is a fac tor in the timber question which we cannot afford to overlook Many peo- pie are under the impression that the demand for lumber Is likely to decrease rather than increase In the future. They argue that in many ways iron and steel Is taking the place of wood We use steel frames for our great buildings, our ships are all of the same material, In nearly every industry the cheapened production of iron has led to its substitution for wood It is only the fruit grower who Is yearly making heavier and heavier demands upon our forests.
 One industry invariably reacts upon another. If the orchards of the State had not prospered so marvelously many of our finest forest trees might still b. standing. A yearly supply of about eighty million boxes Is demanded bv the fruit trade, and from Upton boxes go tc all parts of the coast, even so far south as Mexico. No material has vet been discovered which will serve as a substitute for wood in the packing of fruit, and until something Is found this drain upon our forests Is certain to continue.
 Then there is the export trade Large quantities of our best wood, especially sugar pine, yellow pine and redwood are shipped to Australia, there to be used for building and decorative pur- poses. Australia has little soft wood of her own. therefore the demand Is likely to increase. The Australian ex- port trade in fruit and butter is d large