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Show REDWOOD TREES TO BE SAVED. Washington, Nov. 5 The famous redwood' sequois the "big trees" of California are to be saved as a mat-tre mat-tre of good business. What is said to be the most important step on the part of private lumbering companies toward the preservation of the nation's- timber supply was announced today by the National Lumber Manufacturers Man-ufacturers association The Union Lumber company, the Pacific Lumber Lum-ber company, and the Mendocine Lumber company, the principal private pri-vate companies owning the California Califor-nia redwood forests have agreed here after to conduct their lumbering operations op-erations on the principal of continuous continu-ous production and maintenance of the forests as a whole. This decision, says a statement of the National association, means that the redwood forests made up of the largest trees extant, and the oldest living things, the sequoia of the sem-pervivens sem-pervivens species, will be maintained maintain-ed indefinitely as an economic factor in the life of the nation and as one of the wonders of America. The Tnpthorl of reservation of trip forests, it is understood, includes cutting of timlier in more scattered stands, while every precaution is taken tak-en to prevent the destruction of the forests, which ever since the coming of the white man reforestation will follow upon the steps of the cutters. Amnle areas of the forests will be "reserved forever in the same state of ased maturity as thev have been ever since the coming of the white man and possibly for thousands of years before. The state of California Califor-nia has bought areas of these forests for narks, and the lumber men themselves them-selves have donated areas bordering much traveled roads. The redwood region should not be confused with that of the Sierra sequoias se-quoias which are not numerous enough en-ough to be o fany great importance, it is said. It consists of a narrow strip along the northern coast of California Cal-ifornia an doverlapping into Oregon which is never more than 25 acres, of which only about one-third has been cut over, the remainder being virgin. The total amount of standing timber is estimated at between 60.- non.noo.nnn and 7,noo,ooo.ooo feet of which S5 per cent is redwood. Many of these trees are more than l.OrtO years old:some have been cut that, are authentically known to have been 1.373 years of age; and some may be as-old as two-thousand years At the present rate of cutting; about 600,000,000 feet a year, the stand is expected to last about a century. The redwood is among the most interesting of the tree family. Although Al-though irie of the longest living things the redwood grows very rapidly rap-idly and attains a height of 150 to 200 feet with a diameter of three feeu in the first fifty years. The stands often run to 110,000 feet to the acre. 'Mature trees attain a height of 350 feet as high as thirty-story building and a diameter of 25 feet. It is very persistent, highly fire resistant, and especially adopted to regrowth because it reproduces from sprouts from stump9 and from roots. It has been found practically impossible impos-sible to extrminate the tree except where agriculture is maintained, and little of its habitant is said to be suitable for farming. The tree has no very distructive insect of fungus enemies, and decays very slowly. As lumber it possesses some qualities which make it highly prized. It is slow burning and strongly resistant to decay. It is sift and easily worked, work-ed, finishes well with a cleansing color col-or and grain and has an agreeable fragrance. If all the lumber companies in this area that are at present interested interest-ed in the "perpetual lumbering" idea, agree to adhere to It, allbut 14 per cent of the California redwood red-wood will thus be protected, it was said. With the present supply of virgin timber to work on, it was declared de-clared the present production can be kept up indefinitely, while the redwood red-wood at the same time comes back 'o possession of practically all of the original 1,360.000 acres, except about 100,000 acres suitable for cultivation. cul-tivation. The. method of reforestation is essentially es-sentially that of protecting and encouraging en-couraging the natural and persistent regrowth from stumps and roots in neyly cut over lands. Some of the logged-off lands will be partly restocked re-stocked with seedlings. Without artificial ar-tificial planting, most of the redwood land will come back at the rate of 50,000 feet to the acre, or more, of forty or fifty years, if the fire is kept out, now that the owners have decided to administer the cut-over lan das a permanent timber crop land rather than to convert it into cattle range or tilled fields. Locally the reforestation decision Is declared to be of great economic importance because it means that the present large logging, lumbering and dependant populations of the redwood red-wood counties will be maintained and that there will be no abandoned towns and no unproductive wilderness wilder-ness of idle forest lands. Exchange |