Edward Klopp, age 14, of Williamsport, Penna., for his question:
What is redwood?
Redwood is the pride of California. The wood itself is handsome and durable. The tall trees which yield it grow in ancient groves of filtered sunlight. The bark and the wood are red, the soft red of old terra cotta flower pots. The red is dye, present in cells of bark and wood. It makes the tree proof against insects and fungus rot. tend the sturdy wood is so slow to burn that it is just about fire proof.
No wonder the rich redwood is in demand for building. It is used to make houses and line walls. It is used to make fine furniture, huge vats and other industrial products. The bark and wood chips are shredded into fibers and pressed into roofing tiles that keep out extreme heat and cold. Imperfect logs are made into fence pickets. None of the big tree is wasted.
A certain number of the forest giants are cut and harvested every year. But this does not mean that the famous Redwood Groves are in any danger. Some 80,000 acres are set aside for State and National Parks. Here we can visit them as they were thousands of years ago. The massive trunks taper to the sky. The lacy branches, high above the ground, are often lost in the blowing mist. These groves are drenched with misty breezes from the Pacific Ocean. They stand in rich bottom land and their ancestors may have stood there for 40 million years.
Redwood is forested from commercial farms. In California there are some .00,000 acres of this land along the slopes and in the canyons. Redwood forestry is an art requiring four years of college. The art is to harvest the precious redwood and leave the grove just as it was. Yes, they can do it. Year after year, the grove replaces exactly what was taken.
The trees in the Parks grow slowly. They are often overcrowded. The massive underground root systems are in competition for moisture. The branches and leaves compete for sunlight in the filtered shade. The redwood tree farmer thins out his trees. In three years, his trees may equal 100 years of growth in the untended grove.
A big tree is selector when it is about 175 foot tall and about 80 years old. Felling the tree is quite an event. A bulldozer churns up a bed of soft earth in the forest floor. The tree is cut to fall into this long, soft cradle. After the harvest, the tree experts check to see that there are at least four young seed trees to every acre.
The red forest giant bears a cone no bigger than a thimble. Each cone bears about 100 seeds. A pound of redwood seeds is enough to grow 100,000 giant trees. The big trees grow only in California. The tree farming is carefully supervised and controlled by State laws. The tree farmers themselves stop at nothing to protect their rich and beautiful forests. The Redwood Circle is a civic group that meets to discuss forest protection and logging improvement.
Best of all, teenagers are allowed to compete in logging contests. All this intelligent care goes to make sure that the world's supply of precious redwood will never run out.