fastened with a big iron chain around the
four or six logs on the car, and taken on the logging train to the
mill-pond. They lie soaking in the water until drawn up to the keen
saws of the sawmill that cut and slice the wood like cheese. The bark
and outside is carved off as you would cut the crust off bread, and
then sharp, circular saws cut boards and planks till the log is used
up, and the log-carriage lifts another to its place. As the shining
steel bites into the wood the noise almost deafens you and the mill
shakes with the thunder of log-carriage and feeders. Useless ends,
slabs, and refuse are burnt in the sawdust pit, where the fires never
go out. Very much of the tree is wasted and all the limbs. The redwood
tree has so much life and strength, however, that it sends up bright
green sprouts around the burnt stump, and standing trees charred
outside to the tops will have new branches the next season. In the
older forests tall young trees are often seen growing in a ring round
an empty spot, the long-dead stump having rotted away.

[Illustration: BIG TREES AT FELTON, SANTA CRUZ CO.]

Near Santa Cruz is a grove of large and beautiful redwoods, many
of the trees being over three hundred feet high and from forty
to sixty-five feet around the base of the trunk. The Giant is the
largest, and three other immense ones are named for Generals Grant,
Sherman, and Fremont. In 1846 General Fremont found this grove, and
camped, on a rainy winter night, in the hollow trunk of the tree
bearing his name. Here is also seen a group of eleven very tall trees
growing in a circle around an old stump.

In the Sierras, both in the _sequoia_ groves and forests above the
Big-Tree region, are very large sugar-pines, red firs, and yellow-pine
trees, all of which make excellent lumber. Great forests of these
trees, with cedars almost as large as the redwoods, are in the
northern counties also. You may have seen sugar-pine cones which are
over a foot long, the largest of all found, while redwood cones are
the smallest. Another great tree is the Douglas spruce, the king of
spruce trees, growing in both Sierra Nevada and Coast ranges.

The California laurel, or bay tree, with its beautiful, shining green
leaves, and the madrono, the slender, red-barked tree on the hillsides
you must have noticed in your trips to the country, as well as our
fine valley and mountain oaks. Try to learn the kinds of trees and
study their leaves, blossoms, and