Lumbering and Forest Products 
137 
United States Forest Service 
Fia. 108. Riding a log-boom. When the ice breaks in the spring, the freshets carry down to 
the mills the logs that have been cut and hauled to the river during the winter. The lumber- 
jacks run along the logs with their long steel-hooked poles to break up the log-iams that ob- 
struct the progress of the stream of logs. 
found there are those that can stand the cold, such as hardy pines, 
spruces, firs, and cedars. In this region less than a fourth of the 
trees have been cut. 
(5) The Pacific forest is the finest in the world. Nowhere else are 
trees so large. The sequoias — that is, the * Big Trees” — and the 
redwoods are far the largest; but others, like the Douglas fir and 
red cedar, also reach great size. Here an average acre often supplies 
as much wood as ten acres in the eastern forests. 
The largest of the sequoias are nearly three hundred feet high, 
twenty-five feet in diameter at the base, and more than three thousand 
years old. A single tree would yield lumber enough to build a little 
village. Fortunately the biggest of the trees are now included in the 
Sequoia National Park, and no ax will reach them. 
The great size of the trees in the Pacific forest is in one way 
a disadvantage. Even after they are successfully felled and sawed 
into logs, it is difficult to get them to the sawmill. Sometimes they 
are split by blasting. Often they are dragged by donkey engines 
over a road paved with small logs. The most successful method is 
to use a giant derrick to lift and drag them to waiting flat cars.