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It's unreal the extent timber shills will go to lie about the extent of destruction logging has caused as well as the major changes to climate that logging has created.
>Historically, the Central Valley had the most developed [1,60] and structurally complex riparian forests in the state [6,53]. Elevated water tables, highly fertile soils, and favorable climate produced extraordinarily productive communities [53]. Tree density varied from widely spaced to closed [60], with stand width varying from narrow bands to several kilometers across [53]. A presettlement explorer described a valley oak-California sycamore forest along the Feather River as "thickly wooded, for some two miles in depth, throughout its entire extent". "Its banks are heavily timbered, and some fifty feet in height, coming down abruptly to the water" (Farquar 1932 in [51]). Historically, many riparian trees in the Central Valley were larger than all but the most ancient trees now living. Explorers reported oaks of 6 to 8 feet (1.8-2.4 m) in diameter, 74 feet (23 m) tall, and 125 feet (38 m) in crown width along the Sacramento and Feather rivers, with branches layered continuously from trunk base to crown [51]. Jepson (1893 in [53]) reported the understory of these riparian forests was a "tangle" of California wildrose and California blackberry. California wild grape and Pacific poison-oak often draped up branches of the hardwoods [51]. Surveyors in the 1850s reported that "grape vines form a screen, by which the view of the (Sacramento) river is frequently shut out" (Botanical report to U.S. Senate 1857 in [51]).
