LOGGING IN THE REDWOODS. - Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel - 13 Jun 1874, Sat

LOGGING IN THE REDWOODS. Sat, Jun 13, 1874 – Page 1 · Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel (Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California) · Newspapers.com

LOGGING IN THE REDWOODS

How the Timber is Felled, Cut-up and Sold.

A LAUREL TRACK RAILWAY!

How to Mark an Accomplished Chopper.
A Graphic Sketch of a California Forest.

Real Estate Reporter June 6th.
McClutchem, the millionaire, and Donahue, the hodman, both have houses of the same material here - that is, redwood - the only difference being in the size and architecture of the dwellings. As the admiring Eastern Visitor says, nowhere in the world is so much made of wood as here in California. Our blocks of fine, and even magnificent dwellings, with a stone nowhere but in the foundation, are always a source of wonder to the Eastern man aforesaid, in whose mind wood and cheapness have become associated as synonyms. What Californian [sic] would do without her redwoods, it is hard to conceive. But it is a problem that must face her before a great many years. Her supply is not by any means inexhaustible, as the tree grows along the Coast only, in a strip extending from the Bay of Monterey close to the Oregon line.

THE FORESTS.

Increase in breadth as they grow northward. In the Eel River region in Humboldt county, they run nearly fifty miles inland, but this figure dwindles rapidly toward the south. At few points are the forests more than twenty miles deep, while at Santa Cruz and thence southward, the woods do not often cover more than quarter that ground. The drain upon them is constant and exhausting. The writer has generalized on the estimates of many of the mill men and others in the business, and considers it safe to say that before the rising generation shall have grown to be old men and women, California will have been shorn of her lovely forests. They are being attacked on all sides. To the South, there are numerous small mills sawing ceaselessly - fifteen in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz alone. On the Russian and Gula [Gualala] rivers in Sonoma county, On the little, Albion, Garcia and Navarro Rivers in Mendocino county, and on the Big and Noyo Rivers in Humboldt, mills are running constantly; while along the whole Coast at intermediate points, where shipping is possible, mills are fixed. When it is known that each individual of this army of steam destroyers turns out, according to size, from 10,000 to 75,000 feet of lumber per day, and that the aggregate annual product is 200,000,000, feet some idea may be got of the hole that is being made in our redwoods.

To any one who has ridden for even a day through a redwood forest, it seems impossible that even man's strength or ingenuity could remove the giant trunks at such a destructive rate. And indeed, it is only done by labor on such a colossal scale that the Eastern lumberman, like his friend the farmer, finds in coming to California he must needs learn his trade over again. It is no wonder that men from the pine forests of Maine, on first passing through the redwoods have been utterly amazed at

THEIR TREMENDOUS SIZE

And yet it has been frequently the case that the trees which have excited their astonishment were those left behind as too small to cut after the largest had been felled. Any redwood less than three feet in thickness is considered by the lumbermen a sapling, and not until the woods have been well thinned are such youngsters thought worth the cutting.

When a redwood shows a trunk of nine, twelve, or fifteen feet, he inspires with respect the California axe-man; if less, he must content himself with being hidden among the herd. For fear that the Atlantic doubter should consider us as

DRAWING THE LONG BOW.

In giving these figures, it may be well to mention that, while on his visit to this Coast, Professor Gray, the Botanist, in company with Professor Carr of the State University, discovered in the gulches of the Contra Costa hills, a few miles back of Oakland, redwood stumps that measured thirty feet in diameter!

A REDWOOD LUMBER MILL.

As a fair illustration of the manner in which the redwood is felled, cut-up, and sold, Duncan's mill at the mouth of the Russian River may be taken. This region is thickly timbered, and half a score of mills are making ugly holes in the forests. The trees which supply Duncan's mill with logs are not cut near at hand, but some ten miles up the shallow, winding stream, that in the winter, swells to a raging torrent, which more than once has played mischief with the lumber interest. The logs are dumped into the water about four miles upstream. They are brought to this point by railroad from the logging camp above. This railroad is characteristic and a curiosity. The rails are of laurel eut into strips three inches in width, and capped with iron on the sharper turns, of which in all conscience there are plenty, the whole six miles of this unique road being one snarl of twists, turns, contortions and trestle work. Whenever a straight yard or two does turn up, the wheels roll on bare laurel. And the wood seems to be quite as useful as it is ornamental, bearing the tremendously heavy work well; the rails not needing renewal more than once in four years. Nothing is sacrificed to beauty in this sylvan railway. The ties are logs four and five feet thick pinned down with stakes that look like gate posts, to keep the innocent looking river some thirty feet below from washing them away when it goes on its periodical tear. The cars also are not suited to the service of tourists, being simply square frames of heavy laurel, well greased to facilitate the operation of prizing of the logs into the water. Straddling the least slippery log, breathing a short prayer for strength to hold on, and the passenger is whisked off through the woods at the rate of six miles an hour, the nondescript little locomotive puffing and making noise enough to deceive one into the belief that he is going forty.

A RIDE THROUGH THE REDWOODS,

On Duncan's railroad, is not an experience to be met with every day, and the passenger is apt to feel greater enjoyment of the treat with this reffection in mind. The way does not lie all in the forest, but through an occasional pasture-field, when it is necessary for the brakesman to descend periodically, run ahead of the flying train, and open a gate that crosses the track. There is a half-mile trundle through a thicket of madrona, manzanita and pepperwood sending thousands of quail whirring up, and causing an agony of regret in the passenger that he has not brought his gun along: though how that person, holding on to the greasy wood as he would to the mane of a bucking mustang, could make use of the firearm, does not occur. After a little more of this,

THE REDWOODS IN EARNEST

Are entered, and a mighty sight they are, with their great, rough trunks rising, like masts, for two and three hundred feet, and ending in a mere tuft of crisp, dark-green foliage. Every one of the old fellows seems to have a grand individuality - and they never lose it in a crowd - the more there are of them the more lonely each one seems. As the forest becomes dense, the light, although it be noon, softens to the gloaming. The sunlight striking through in bars, here and there gilding a jagged trunk, gives a glory of light and shade to the vast, cathedral distances. No painter has dared to try his hand at the heavenly vistas, and the wonderful diffusion and blending of light. The passenger almost loses his grip on his greasy steed, and is irritated by the rattle and jarring of the train, which seems as much out of place as a brawler in the sanctuary.

A curve brings to view a scene of black, charred desolation, in the form of a deserted logging camp. Nothing can look more dreary and weird. Blasted trees, barkless from fire, their cracked surfaces reflecting the deep blue of the sky. The soil scorched to utter barrenness. Twisted, gnarled, overturned roots, whose jet color and grotesque fantastic forms, would delight Gustave Dore. Empty cabins, falling into decay. Half-burned logs and broken yokes; shattered mauls and axe-handles; oyster-cans, old boots, rotting fragments of clothing and the bleached bones of oxen, make a picture of such hideous ruin, that the passenger is quite grateful to the obliging brakesman for his information that the old stumps will, in few years, have surrounded themselves with circles of young redwoods, which will replace the charred desert with their fresh, vivid green. "Fur," says the brakesman, "you can't kill a redwood, nohow you kin fix it. They'd grow in Hell."

The passenger nearly slides off, as a wild shriek, as of some one in mortal agony, echoes through the forest. A fearful yell of profanity, complicated beyond unravelling, causes the brakesman to smile patronizingly, and explain, "Only the bull-puncher, sir." And in a few minutes the locomotive pants up to the depot, which is a ponderous landing of laurel logs, up the inclined sides of which the oxen drag their heavy loads. The important-looking superintendent of this primitive station is a muscular little Chinaman whose shaven head barely reaches the top of the log he is forcing along the greased laurel "skids" with a stout bar or hickory. The facility with which the immense redwood logs, some of them containing lumber enough to build small house, are handled, is marvelous. The little Chinaman, with the brakesman's aid, can load the three cars in as many minutes, and fasten down the logs by driving in heavy hooks at the end of ropes in a minute more.

This landing is the centre of a system of roads leading from all parts of the woods. Like the tracks of the railway the roads are of laurel, the logs being laid some three feet apart on the "corduroy" plan, and kept wet and slimy, as otherwise it would be impossible for the oxen to drag their gigantic loads.

An hour in the camp among the men chopping, barking, sawing and handling, impresses one with the fact that a great deal of skill and system is necessary to carry on the huge work.

THE CHOPPERS

Especially, must be men of intelligence and experience. A great deal more than mere strength to swing the axe for eleven hours a day, is required to make a good chopper. After the tree is selected the ground needs careful looking after, as a stump or fallen tree, or any considerable inequality of the earth, would, as a gentleman of the profession remarked, "Knock the biggest on 'em into smithereens." It is a peculiarity of redwood to split into long and profitlessly thin strips upon small provocation, and the inexperienced eye glancing over the ground that bristles with all sorts of obstacles sees little hope of any tree escaping destruction. And it is only the extreme skill of the chopper that makes the disaster uncommon. They can drive a stake with the biggest tree in the forest when the ground is clear. When there is not sufficient opening in a direct line, a common expedient is to fell the tree so that it will strike in its descent the trunk of another. Calculating the bounce well, marks an accomplished chopper.

Felling a seven or eight foot tree is half a day's work for three men. The choppers stand some six or eight feet from the ground, each on a narrow bit of board, one end of which is thrust into a notch in the bark, and this unsteady footing is all they have, while they hack away with their long axes, hour after hour. When a ten or fifteen footer is encountered, a platform of bark, with the standing boards for support, is built, and an extra chopper put on. Two cuts are made in the tree; that on the side on which the monster is to fall being much larger and somewhat lower than the one on the other side. Thus the weight of the tree is made to serve for its own overthrow. It is tremendously hard work, and wears the strongest man out in from three to four years.

When the tree begins to "complain," as the shrill, vibrating, cracking noise, is aptly called, the choppers give a warning wail that sends all the workmen in the neighborhood scampering to a safe distance. A second cry tells that the tree is wavering, and the choppers themselves leap from their perches and run for it. The giant yields slowly and with a mighty grumbling. Then, in spite of himself, he leans over painfully, and, with a frightsome booming and crackling, sweeps to the trembling earth, the foliage whistling and screaming like the rigging of a ship in a hurricane. The shock is terrific, and resembles nothing so much as an earthquake. Clouds of dust, mingled with flying fragments, are thrown into the air. Every branch is snapped off and broken to splinters. The thud is heard and felt miles away.