Editing Sequoiadendron giganteum (section)

==Uses==
[[File:Albert_Bierstadt_-_Giant_Redwood_Trees_of_California_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|[[Albert Bierstadt]]'s ''Giant Redwood Trees of California'', 1874 – a large [[oil on canvas]] [[painting]] in the [[Berkshire Museum]], [[Massachusetts]], [[United States]]<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=Berkshire Eagle|url=https://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/giant-redwood-trees-will-fall-at-berkshire-museum-despite-interpretive-value,543640|title='Giant Redwood Trees' will fall at Berkshire Museum despite interpretive value|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725013955/https://www.berkshireeagle.com/stories/giant-redwood-trees-will-fall-at-berkshire-museum-despite-interpretive-value,543640 |archive-date=2020-07-25|date=June 30, 2018}}</ref>]]
Wood from mature giant sequoias is highly resistant to decay, but due to being fibrous and brittle, it is generally unsuitable for construction. From the 1880s through the 1920s, logging took place in many groves in spite of marginal commercial returns. The [[Hume-Bennett Lumber Company]] was the last to harvest giant sequoia, going out of business in 1924.<ref>{{cite web|title = Battle against Rough fire intensifies as blaze bears down on Hume Lake|url = http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article31640498.html|website = fresnobee|access-date = 2015-10-18|archive-date = 2015-10-15|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20151015041624/http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article31640498.html|url-status = live}}</ref> Due to their weight and brittleness, trees would often shatter when they hit the ground, wasting much of the wood. Loggers attempted to cushion the impact by digging trenches and filling them with branches. Still, as little as 50% of the timber is estimated to have made it from groves to the mill. The wood was used mainly for shingles and fence posts, or even for matchsticks.

Pictures of the once majestic trees broken and abandoned in formerly pristine groves, and the thought of the giants put to such modest use, spurred the public outcry that caused most of the groves to be preserved as protected land. The public can visit an example of 1880s clear-cutting at [[Big Stump Grove]] near [[General Grant Grove]]. As late as the 1980s, some immature trees were logged in [[Sequoia National Forest]], publicity of which helped lead to the creation of [[Giant Sequoia National Monument]].{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}}

The wood from immature trees is less brittle, with recent tests on young [[plantation]]-grown trees showing it similar to coast redwood wood in quality. This is resulting in some interest in cultivating giant sequoia as a very high-yielding timber crop tree, both in California and also in parts of western Europe, where it may grow more efficiently than coast redwoods. In the northwest [[United States]], some entrepreneurs have also begun growing giant sequoias for [[Christmas tree]]s. Besides these attempts at tree farming, the principal economic uses for giant sequoia today are [[tourism]] and [[horticulture]].