The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1909-06-16
CALIFORNIA; LARGE TREES
SEOUOIA ON THE PACIFIC COAST
REACHES 400 FEET AND
20 FEET THROUGH.

The sequoia here in Humboldt,
says a Humboldt, Cal, paper, is the
tallest 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 New York or from
Chicago to st. Louis. Yet such is
the case.
On the ridges and flats of Hum
boldt is the forest, and of that forest
the trees grow to 26 feet in dame
ter and tower 400 feet in the sky.
Do you know what these figures
mean? Measure the room in which
you are now sitting. If it is a very
large room the longest dimension
would just about contain one of these
dow and see the people more than a
city block away. That is the dis
lance from which one sees the top
most Dough 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 Chetco river. South of the
ChetcO a continuous redwood belt
begins and increases in width from
ten miles at Del Norte county to
eighteen or twenty miles and keeps
unbroken to southern Humboldt
county. Here is a gap, but in Men
dOcinO the belt becomes dense again
and widens out to thirty-f1ve miles.
South of that county the tree grows
in isolated patches.
The climate and topography of
northern California have brought
about this limited distribution.
North and south along the coast in
nearly parallel ridges lie the noun
tainS of the Coast Range, steep and
rising to attitudes of 1000 to 1000
feet. A few large rivers, the Smith,
Klamath, Mad, Eel, Russian and
many smaller streams cut through
, them to enter the sea, and along
their courses in places are broad
bottom lands and gentle slopes.
West of the Coast Range the eli
mate 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
, bathes 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 sum-
mer, and wet only occasionally by
the winter rains-conditiOns too I'M
favorable to permit the growth of
redwood. 1t requires very little
from the soil except that it be moist.
1t is SO dependent on moisture of
| the air that this factor mainly or
wholly determines it's distribution
and the eastern limits of the for
ests are determined by the distance
inland to which sea fOgs may drift.
There are two types of the tree
that which grows on the hillside and
! the second which grows on the flats
along the rivers and streams. The
usual type is that of the slope; that
! is the growth found on the steep
sides of the coast ranges, and side
! by side with the redwood grow other
trees, such as red fir, tanbark, oak,
white fir and madrOne. AS the
slopes become moderate, the alti-
tude lower, the soil deeper the for
est becomes denser, until on the rich
flats and in the gulches the second
type is developed. On the best red
wood flats no other tree grows.
On the slopes 225 feet is about
the maximum length and ten feet it's
greatest diameter, while on the flats
under better conditions, the tree
grows to be $50 feet high with a
diameter of thirty feet, and occa-
sionally giants exceed this. Most OF
the redwoods are from 400 to SOC
lyears old. The oldest tree scientifi-
lcally measured was 1 400 years. AT.
ter the tree has passed 500 years il
usually begins to lie down from the
top. 1t has straight, slightly ia.
pered trunk without limbs for more
than one hundred feet, and crown
of horizontal branches that may oc.
cupy a third to half of it's length
The roots strike downward at q
sharp angle, and are so large and sc
numerous that they form a compact
mass. The bark is of a reddish gray
color, ffbrOus in texture, gives to the
full grown tree fiuted appearance
and offers such remarkable resist
| ance to fire that except under great
heat it is not combustible. Insect:
do it little harm, the wind cal
scarcely uproot it and fungi seldom
: affect it.
Could Not Be Better.
TO- z..a..