The enterprise-recorder. (Madison, Fla.) 1908-1933, 1908-12-03

axe of the lumberman?" is question
freuuently asked by those who are
not familiar with the topography OF
California. The question answers IL
self when one has made a trip to the
giant forest in the Sierras.
Nature seems TO have protected
many OF these trees from slaughter
by providing a home for them in
mountain fortress. The big trees
we're discovered by the lum6ermen |
when the land on which they grew
could be had for a song under the |
homestead act or the timber and |
stone act but the problem Of trans
portinc the timber to the mill in
volved so great an expenditure that
the lumber companies hesitated TO
tackle the Job Some OF the more
audacious acquired ownership OF
those tracts nearest the market ana
expended large sums Of money in the
construction Of fumes It has been
a paying investment, The Hume
Bennett Lumber Company purchased
a tract containing So0,OO0,OOO feet
of standing timber, about 100000
600 feet OF which is big trees. To
float this timber TO the mill hume
more than fifty miles long was con-
structed. But even this company did
not have the hardihood TO make the
expenditure that would be necessary
to cut and market the timber on the
crest of the mountain range.
Before the glacial period the Sc
quota fourished in the temperate
zones o; Europe Asia and America,
The biologists say that when the
ice receded just two species, the big
tree and the redwood, survived. Botn
grew in California, the redwood in
narrow strip OF the coast ranges and
the big tree in small groves along the
west slope Of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains.
There are but ten main groups Of
big trees. They are among the
scarcest Of known cree species and
have the extreme scientific value OF
being the best living representatives
Of a former geologic age. The big
tree has come down TO us through the
vicissitudes OF many centuries solely
because Of It's superb qualifications
says T. W. Brahany, in the Milwau-
. kee Sentinel. Its bark is often two
feet thick and almost noncombusti6le.
The oldest specimens felled are still
sound at the heart, and fungus is an
enemy unknown TO 1t.
Yet with all these means OF main
tenance the big trees have not in
creased their range since the glacial
period. They have only just man
aged to hold their own on the LITTLE
strip Of country where the climate il
locally favorable. John Muir, the
celebrated geologist, says ne neye'
J saw big tree that had died a natura
death. Barring accidents, he says
they seem to be immortal, being eX
E empt from all the diseases that Attic
! and kill other trees. Unless de
1 stroyed by man they live on indeti
g nitely until burned, smashed b
) lightning or cas- down by storms o
, by the giving away Of the ground o.
4 which they stand.
t The largest belt Of big trees is i
the Sierras in Tulare County, som
1 forty miles northwest of Visalit
> These trees are scattered over tn
4 slopes and on the valleys, but ar
t larger in the depressions where tn
s soil is more moist. The trees al
o not collected together in groves bl
d are scattered through the forests an
d associated with sugar pine, FIR an
T other species usually occurring
7. this altitude The are more abul
dant at from 5000 to 1000 feet ell
walton above sea level.
In 1885 some enterprising men
10 California hit uron a scheme wher
u by numbering operations in the his
a Sierras could be conducted prohtabl
l. They organized a profit sharing sol
ETY. known as the Kaweah colony.
Id had the germ of the socialistic spir
es for each member contributed his p
ne rata OF money or labor TO the cau'
IN A cooperative store was organize
d. a cooperative mill established, far
in lands were apportioned and work "
as begun on the construction OF 70
lis to the mountain battlements wht
,r- we're growing the grand old trt
ny that had stood since the days
or Christ.
The Kaweah colony had a memb
Id ship of 352, nearly every State in
les Union being represented. SIEVE
re, members of the colony worked on
lat road and fully two-third Of splent
we wagon way up the steep slopes
Tut been completed when, without wa
it ing, Congress exploded a bombst