Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-04-01
BIG TREES.
Some Giants are Found in
State Of Washington.
Fourteen Room House Was
Built From One Fir Tree.
Monster Log Blown Across Canyon
Forms Bridge 10 Feet Wide


Seattle, March 30-The recent hew-
ing of yellow fir log ut Buckley,
measuring 60 inches square and IS feet
long. has aroused considerable COM
ment, but the annals of the lumber
industry of Washington contain even
more remarkable incidents. When
President Taft was in the Panama
Canal Zone recently his attention was
called to several huge Spud sticks in
the big dredges and he asked where
it was possible to obtain such timbers.
TIE identical timbers We're shipped
from Bellingham, Wash, last summer.
Each measured SO inches by 40 inches
and was over 80 feet long. ..
The recent challenge of Portland,
Ore. for the biggest timbers sawed
in the world has been answered from
many parts of Washington. Portland
mills sawed two sticks for Panama So
inches square and 50 feet 10 inches
long. Bellingham. wash, came for
ward with Il claim for a sawed SpuG
stick for a tredge measuring 40 inches
square and 90 feet long, and laid fur
ther claim to furnishing lumber 125
feet long.
The prize winner, according to local
mllmen, should be log sent from
here to San Francisco which was too
big-so big that no mill could saw it,
the trimming having to be done by
hand with axes. The log measured "a
inches by 50 inches and was 104 feet
long when hewn into shape. The larg-
est log ever cut in any mill in the
state was y inches in diameter at the
smallest end.
Near Elna, Wash, the remarkable
feat of erecting a fourteen-room house
from the lumber of a single yellow
fir was recently accomplished. There
| We're nearly $4,000 feet of lumber in
the logs of the tree. Six logs % feet
long. the largest one feet in diameter
at the smallest end. We're made from
| the fir. The measurement of the stump
| of the tree inside the bark was exact
| ly 9 feet. The trunk was straight,
| and for over one hundred feet not
| limb appeared. the total length of the
| tree being over three hundred feet.
| The lumber of this tree was worth
close to $1,000. The corporation own
| ing the land furnishing this tree has
hundreds of such frs, many of them
too big to be handled by the equip
ment now possessed by Washington
saWnils.
Near Snoqualmie Falls a year ago
a giant tree was blown across a deep
canyon The huge trunk of the former
monarch of the forest forms a foot
bridge ten feet wide. The log has been
levellcd and teams are often driven
across it by venturesome drivers.
~, nnf
inches around above the bulge of the
root. was blown down few weeks ago
near South Bend. The cedar was II
feet in diameter IS feet above the
ground. At South Bend a great cedar
is standing IS feet in diameter. At
MonteSano is another cedar II feet
inches in diameter. On the Johns riv-
er this re are groves of cedar trees that
vary from 10 to "a feet in diameter.
Very few of them are hollow.
There is a cedar tree in Snohomish
county owned by the Weyernaueses
Timber Company. which is declared
to be the largest tree on the continent
exceeding in girth by three inches the
largest in the famous redwood forest
OF California. This cedar measures
104 feet inches in circumference and
it is over $50 feet to the first limb.
which is believed to be five feet III
diameter.
On the west slope of the Cascade
mountains. giant rcd fir was recently
blown across the tracks of the North
ern Pacific Railroad. Traffic was
blocked by the monster log. which
measured eight feet in diane ter
There was no saw for miles big
enough to cut the timber. and as the
railroad company could not wait the
five days required to saw out sec
ton from the log. dynamite was placed
in deeply bored holes and the huge log
blown into spfntcrs. 1t was easier ana
che aprr to repair ten rods of roadbed
than to saw through seven feet of sol
i'll fir wood.
The density of the timber of this
state in uncqualed in the world In
Clallam cnunty according to oflcial
mea surene the timbered area runs
20 DOC. 600 feet to the square mile The
stand on small areas is even NOR"
dense One acre recently cruiSed
showed 800, 900 feet of standing timber.
A Pacific county mill cut 100000 feet
from q little less than two acres.
40-acre tract in Clallam county con-
tains $500 600 feet of standing tim
Der. There ere $500. 900 feet of fir, $780,
OGo feet of spruce and 100000 feet or
hemlork The quarter section of which
this tract is q part contains 100000
feet of fir. o,790,000 of spruce and 100,
600 of hemlock
There are $4,000 square miles Of tim
Der standing in this state. This would
make a plank road three inches thick
and 800 feet wide twice around the
world.