Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-07-03
SOME LOFTY TREES
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA POSSESSES
FINE SPECIMENS.
The Sequoia in That Section Grows 400
Feet High and IS Feet in
Diameter.

! The sequoia here in Humboldt is the
/ taliest tree in the whole United States.
But the tourist from the east or west
knows it not. What would he say to the
information that in the northwest of
California grows a mighty continuous
forest of these great trees and that it
takes days to travel merely from end
! TO end of that forest, which is longer
than the distance from Boston to New
| York or from Chicago to St. Louis. Yet
such is the case.
On the ridges and fats of Humboldt
is the forest, and of that forest the trees
grow to 20 feet in diameter and tower
400 feet in the sky. Do you know
what those figures mean? Measure the
room in which you are now sitting. If
1 1t is very large room the longest di-
mansions would just about contain one
OF these great trunks. Look out of
your window and see the people more
than city block away. That is the
distance from which one sees the top
most bough of these stupendous giants
The redwood of California is the great
tree of the Pacific coast. Two thousand
acres of it exist in Oregon along the
Chetoo river. South of the Chetoo
continuous redwood belt begins and in
creases in width from ten miles at Del
Norte county to eighteen or twenty miles
anu hccpS Uu ulDFOken TO southern
humboldt county. Here is gap, but in
/ Mendoeino the belt becomes dense again
and widens out to thirty-ive miles.
| South of that county the tree grows in
isolated patches.
The climate and topography of north
ern California have brought about this
limited distribution. North and south
along the coast in nearly parallel ridges
| lie the mountains of the Coast range,
steep and rising to attitudes of 1000 to
1000 feet. A few large rivers, the Smith
I klamath, Mad, Eel, Russian and many
smaller streams cut through them to en-
ter the sea, and along their courses in
places are broad bottom lands and gem
tie slopes.
! West of the Coast range the climate is
even and moderate, with a temperature
running from just below freezing to
eighty degrees. Snow lies on the tops of
only the highest ridges. Thirty to sixty
inches of rain falls in the autumn and
winter; and during the summer sea fog
| battles the coast.
But east of the mountains less than
| fifty miles from the sea- lie hot interior
valleys, never visited by fog, parched and
rainless in SUMMER and wet only occa-
sionally by the winter transformations
too unfavorable to permit the growth of
redwood. 1t requires very little from the
soil except that it be moist. 1t is so de-
pendent on moisture of the air that this
I factor mainly or wholly determines its
distribution and the eastern limits of the
forests are determined by the distance in
land to which sea fogs may drift
There are two types of the tree-that
which grows on the hillsi1es. and the
second, which grows on the fats along
the rivers and streams. The usual type
1 is that of the slope; that is the growth
found on the steep sides of the coast
ranges, and side by side with the red
wood grow other trees, such as red fir.
tanbark oak, white fir and madrone. As
the slopes become moderate, the altitude
| lower, the soil deeper the forest besomes
ldenser. until on the rich flats and in the
gulches the second type is developed. On
the best redwood fate no other tree
grows.
On the slopes 225 feet is about the
maximum length and 10 feet its greatest
diameter while on the fats. under better
conditions, the tree grows to be $50 feet
| high with a diameter of 80 feet, and occa-
sionally giants exceed this. Most of the
redwoods are from 400 to 500 years old
The oldest tree scientifically measured
was 1400 years. After the tree has passed
| 500 years it usually begins to die down
| from the top. 1t has a straight. slightly
| tapered trunk without limbs for more
than one hundred feet and a crown of
| horizontal branches that may occupy a
third to a half of its length The roots
| strike downward at a sharp angle and
are so large and so numerous that they
| form compact mass. The bark is of a
reddish gray color, hbrous in texture.
gives to the full grown tree fiuted ap-
pearance and offers such a remarkable
resistance to fire that except under great
| heat it is not combustible. Insects do ii
| little harm, the wind can scarcely uproot
! it ana fungi seldom affect it-Humboldt
/