Happily, this melancholy cry is not the expression of an actual fact, at least, so far as the Sequoia is concerned. Enough Sequoian tracts have been made safe from the axe to insure the future of the race and to prevent ultimate destruction at the hands of man. Nor is the tree in danger of natural extinction if the salvaged Sequoian tracts reproduce in sufficient numbers to continue the struggle for existence. If this can be proved to a reasonable certainty, then the Sequoia, as a race, is not fated to be without descendants. Unlike the Redwood of the coast, the great Sequoia of the Sierra does not reproduce by root or stump sprouts, but from seed only. The seeds are in cones exceedingly small for so colossal a tree, being hardly larger than a small egg. These ovule bodies are composed of thirty to forty closely packed, woody, persistent scales, each with four to six seeds at its base. Two years are required for the cone to mature, and by early Autumn of the second year their olive green, purplish color has faded to a dull yellowish brown, the cone has shrunken and the scales parted sufficiently to liberate its seeds to the wind. So insignificant looking are these tiny seeds that few fail to marvel that they should contain the actual germ which produces the largest inhabitant of the world’s forests. But the size of a mustard seed, with membranous disk-like wings, they are so light that they make a sound almost imperceptible to the human ear in their glancing and wavering fall to the forest floor. Not less impressive is the abundance of these seeds. Over three hundred are contained within each cone. John Muir counted on two ordinary specimen branches over four hundred and eighty cones containing at least one hundred and forty thousand seeds. This led him to state that “millions of seeds are ripened annually by a single tree, and in a fruitful year the product of one of the northern groves would contain enough to plant all the mountain ranges of the world.” Surely, the cone of the Sequoia presses closely upon the classic pomegranate in the number of its seeds and may well be considered the symbol of abundance. During the droning days of Autumn when the air is freighted with a calm, serious stillness, and a thousand wild creatures are occupied with tasks that fulfill an instinctive provision for a coming want, the squirrels are busy gathering the Sequoia cones, small as they are. Throughout these quiet days the sound of their dropping may be heard and grey-furred bodies may be seen coming down the great red trunks with nervous, jerky vehemence—trunks whose bark has known the tiny feet of others of their voluble kin decades ago. Securing the cones they have cut down with their “ivory sickles,” these diligent little harvesters store them away for winter use. Often forgotten, these cones, buried at the proper depth for germination, become the means of further perpetuating the race of the giants.