Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 February 1878 — Lumbering in California. [ARTICLE]

Lumbering in California.

The production of lumber is an important industry in California, and, in tact, on the Pacific coast For the past year there has been an over-production and the demand has fallen off. There ’ are too many mills and there has been a great disposition to cut under ih prices. The redwood lumber in California comes principally from Humboldt, Mendocina ana Del Norte Counties. For hundreds of miles the slopes of the Sierras are covered with immense forests of sugar pine, spruce and fir. The best timber is found at an altitude of from 3,500 to 6,000 feet, up to the snow fine. These vast timber resources are being utilized by a company whose operations are of stupendous magnitude, and on a scale probably unparalleled in this country. Their property in mills and other equipments is worth over $2,000,000. Most of their mills are located in the mountains, and number nearly a dozen. They operate over 150 miles of V flume, which floats their lumber from the forests to the yards. This flume was built ten years ago and cost from $1,500 to $2,500 a mile. It runs over tree tops, along mountain sides looking down over 1,000 feet, crosses deep canyons, suspended by trestle work 160 feet in the air, ana then finally reaches the valley. If a man is injured he is placed in a little V-shaped box, sixteen feet in length, and run down the flume at the rate o$K dozen miles an hour to the camp, whore a physician is In readiness to attend him. The 'company operates twenty miles of tramway for hauling their logs to the mills and 200 miles of telegraph, which connects their mills with their main office. The capacity of their mills is 50,000,000 feet yearly. The annual pay-roll is some $450,000. Over 500 men are employed, 500 work cattle and 100 or more horses and mules. It is a wonderful lumber enterprise. The sugar pine lumber of the company, beside finding a home market, goes to Japan, China, Chili, Peru, Australia and New York.— Cor. Boston Journal.