MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 348, 8 January 1903, Page 3

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

mrnmi Trees e* the P*«fSe »a^ moSm* Been IriiMii Vl).^ * gdy «fe Statements in the Cniifwrate. paptra that the sequoias hare no commercial value are apt to create mu-prise et all the effort that has been, needed to. begin the work of making these giant tree® public instead of private property in order to preserve th«nu If they have a sentimental value only, no great price should be asked fon them. Indeed, that is the argument addressed to the eastern owner ol the Calaveras grove, with whom the national government is dickering. Hitherto it has been threatening unless his price .was paid to convert the trees into lumber, when “cvers lumberman knows that the trees ore of no value for milling," aayja sha 6aaj Francisco Chronicle. T , In the first place, the Saa 3ftande| co paper explains, the cost of felling any one of the 92' big trees on thcji 500-acre tract would be excessive. Zf) would take five men 22 day* to borsj enough hole® through any tree 30 feet in diameter. After being felled tbs trunk would have to be out into Affij foot lengths to bo serviceable. a block of wood, say 33 feet in Aon* eter by 40 feet in length, Would weigh about 500 tons, and no chinery has yet been built capable «t handling it. No saw could work on such a flection, if it were possible to got it to a mill, and to split it With dynamite, so Mr. /Whiteside o&oe suggested, would shatter the log and spoil the lumber. In other worde, the Idg trees are vastly too pieeeNt; Cog Bommercial use, ■' 'Hi&attWK