PRIVATE FORESTRY IN THE WEST

CHAS. L. TEBBE, H. J. ANDREWS.

A blazed tree on an old military trail in Coeur d'Alene National Forest, Idaho.

One-third of all existing saw timber in the United States is in the western half of Oregon and Washington. The entire West, with only one-fourth of the commercial forest land, supports two-thirds of the saw-timber volume. Some of the implications are at once apparent.

First of all is the growing dependence on the West for national requirements of forest products. Western lumber production has increased nearly 50 percent since 1938. The number of sawmills has more than doubled. Pulp-mill capacities are being expanded. Hitherto inaccessible areas are being operated. The country is getting its quality products in increasing amount from the virgin old-growth timber of the West.

Heretofore the East has provided the bulk of the national production (55 to 60 percent since 1929) , but it has done that at the expense of its growing stock, and the size of the timber harvested has steadily declined.

The cutting and management practices used in harvesting the old-growth timber in the West must be such as to insure that a new crop of trees will be Frown to replace the old forest after it is cut.

Responsibility for continued productivity is shared by Federal, State, and county governments and private owners, because all of them own or control timberland. Nearly 40 percent of western commercial forest land and timber, however, is in private hands. Generally speaking, this includes the best and most accessible timber and the most productive sites. It is also the scene of the greatest logging activity. About 72 percent of the 14 billion feet produced in the West in 1946 came from private lands. The kind of forestry practiced there during the initial cutting will determine in large measure the character, the scale, and the value of the contribution western timberlands can make in the future.

THE FIRST MAJOR REQUIREMENT that must be met if we are to achieve sustained yield is to have a sufficient quantity of merchantable second-growth timber available to fill our needs by the time the virgin forests have been cut. That means we must keep the cut-over lands fully productive and budget the cut of old growth so that the timber supply in an area will not be exhausted before a new crop of trees has grown to usable size.

If it takes 100 years for trees to attain sawlog size, it is obvious that an owner must not remove more than one-hundredth of his timber inventory each year; otherwise there will come a time when sustained yield will be disrupted. For example, if he clear-cuts his entire forest property at the rate of one-fiftieth of his supply, at the end of 50 years he will have no trees older than 50 years; if he uses the individual-tree selection system, the reserved trees will have to be cut before they have had time to put on enough growth to offset the amount cut. Each year the owner will be decreasing his capital instead of operating on the interest.

Cutting practices that will maintain productivity of forest land are a second prerequisite to sustained yield and to stabilized industry and communities. Many years of research and experience have defined cutting practices for most timber types. They are relatively easy to put into practice, especially in the well-stocked stands in the West. A little effort before logging and during logging will save more young trees and insure more prompt regeneration than will many times the effort expended in planting or other rehabilitation measures taken after a destructive logging operation.

Finally, if we are going to grow trees and manage forests, we must protect them from fire, insects, disease.

Of the three requirements, volume control, to insure continuity of production, is now the greatest problem. In large measure the pattern is already set, for, despite the shorter history and large timber inventory of the West, the forest-products industry here is by no means in its infancy. Development of private lands has been rapid.

The largest sawmills in the world are here. In Oregon and Washington, 1,200 sawmills annually produce as much lumber as do 37,000 sawmills in the East and South. Amortization of large-plant investments usually necessitates a large annual production. Even where this is not the case, a mill that is designed to turn out 100, 200, or 300 thousand feet of lumber each day cannot be operated economically on much less. When a plant or group of plants is once installed, therefore, timber requirements become inflexible, except within narrow limits. If the aggregate plant capacity is not geared to the capacity of the tributary land to grow timber, an excessive rate of cutting, ultimate timber shortage, and curtailed production are inevitable. Excess installed capacity was the fault most commonly committed in the early days by many of the older plants.

More important for the future is the character of plant installation now being made in hitherto undeveloped areas, in southwest Oregon and northwest California, for example. If, somehow, the lessons learned from experience were brought to bear on the pattern of mill installation in the new areas, volume control, sustained yield, and stabilized communities and pay rolls would be assured. But that does not appear to be in prospect. We are in a fair way to repeat the mistake that led to transitory sawmills elsewhere.

An illustration is in Lane County, Oreg., where the wealth of timber was so great that the sustained-yield capacity was estimated a few years ago at 832 million board feet annually. In1938 some 86 sawmills consumed about 376 million board feet of logs, a moderate cut in view of the allowable cut under sustained yield. By 1943 the number of plants had increased to 128, and they consumed 879 million board feet of logs, somewhat more than the sustained-yield limitations. In 1944 the cut was 875 million feet; in 1946, 204 mills cut 955 million feet of timber.