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.