Article August 14, 1902 Issue

The Giant Redwoods

Enos Brown

Scientific American

One of the results of the prosperity which the state of California is now enjoying is the revival of the lumber interests and the remarkable demand for export of the product of its redwood forests. Conditions are quite unprecedented. The redwood is found only in California and in but a comparatively contracted area even there. From Santa Cruz county on the south to the Oregon line on the north it attains full development, but lower than Mendocino county, owing to vicinity of the great markets, the forests have been about exhausted and these localities are no longer considered producers. A considerable acreage in Santa Cruz county has been recently appropriated as public domain.

The available redwood, therefore, is now confined to about 318 miles of coast. The annual product, in this region, is about 320,000,000 feet, and it is estimated, at the present rate of consumption, that enough standing timber exists to last for one hundred and fifty years.

The redwood is rarely found beyond the reach of the ocean fogs; its extreme limit being thirty-five miles inshore, and then only when some valley-like depression permits the entrance of fog to that distance. The tree seems to have an affinity for the salt sea fog and attracts it about its lofty branches. There it condenses and falls to the ground in a gentle rain. The ground under the redwood tree is always moist.

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