PONDEROSA PINE IN THE SOUTHWEST

C. OTTO LINDH.

From train or highway, the traveler in Arizona and New Mexico sees treeless mesas, deserts, some scattered woodlands, century-old habitations, the white gold of the sunshine, and the bright blue of the cloudless sky. He does not see, far back from the main routes, the plateaus, the high mesas, and the slopes that are clothed with valuable forests.

In Arizona and New Mexico are 6,280,000 acres of forest land from which trees can be harvested. About 4 million of these acres are in national forests, a million in other Federal ownership and the Indian reservations, and a million in the ownership of States and counties and individuals.

The most valuable tree in the Southwest is the ponderosa pine, which in volume accounts for 88 percent of the total of all commercial species and produces 90 percent of the 375 to 400 Million board feet of lumber cut each year. Unbroken stands extend for miles.

Ponderosa pine grows where the annual precipitation is 18 to 24 inches less water than any other large commercial tree requires. In the Southwest it grows at elevations of 6,500 to 8,000 feet, which correspond to the 18- to 24-inch precipitation zone. At lower elevations it is found in mixture with junipers, pinyons, and oaks. In its main range, pure stands are the rule. On cool, northern slopes and at upper elevations, it is mixed with Douglas-fir, spruce, limber pine, and white fir. Small aspen groves are not unusual throughout the type, except at the lower elevations. Disregarding extremes, ponderosa pine stands contain 5,000 to 15,000 board feet an acre. Over large areas, in the main range, stands average about 10,000 board feet an acre.

The virgin stands of ponderosa pine in the Southwest are unusually decadent or injured. Western red rot reduces gross volumes by 15 to 25 percent or more on some rocky ridges. Mistletoe, the slow killer, is widespread. The Cronartium rust is found throughout the type on individual trees here and there. Bark beetles are not unusually serious and seldom reach epidemic proportions, except that several species of Ips and Dendroctonus make serious inroads in small areas during cycles of dry weather. Lightning causes the most damage and highest mortality. If it does not kill the struck tree outright, it leaves a long open wound, into which disease organisms enter easily. Abert squirrels and porcupines girdle the limbs and tops of trees, especially those of sapling and pole size. The girdled trees become deformed, and rot enters the wounds.

Ponderosa pine is a light-loving tree. It reproduces and grows best with some overhead and side light. It seldom reproduces in full shade. Because of the low annual precipitation, it needs plenty of space to reach its largest growth. At the same time, a dense stand is desirable, at least through the sapling and pole stage, in order to keep the lower limbs small and obtain natural pruning on the main bole.

The spring period in the Southwest is unusually dry and windy. Summer rains are the rule, but often are no more than showers. A combination of a good seed crop and early and heavy summer rains is needed to insure reproduction of ponderosa pine. Seldom does the combination occur. In 1918, the seed crop was heavy, the following spring was favorable for germination and establishment, and the summers of 1919 and 1920 were above average for continued seedling growth. As a result, large areas of reproduction and saplings are now common in most of the Southwest. Since then, only relatively few seedlings have become established each year.

HISTORY does not record how soon the Spanish erected the first sawmill in New Mexico after Onate led the first settlers into the Valley of the Rio Grande del Norte in 1598. One of the first sawmills in northern Arizona was brought overland from the Salt Lake region by the Latter Day Saints and erected south of Flagstaff at Sawmill Springs in 1878.

Large-scale lumbering operations began with the construction of the first railroad ( now the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe) through the timbered parts of the Southwest. Between 1878 and 1881, the forests near Las Vegas, Pecos, and Santa Fe, in New Mexico, were heavily cut for ties and construction material. In the 1880's the stands on the Colorado Plateau near Flagstaff and Williams, in Arizona, were extensively cut. Since then, the lumber industry has thrived and spread.

Early cutting of ponderosa pine was strictly on a basis of cut and use what you can. The usable trees in the most available areas were cut; the rest were usually burned, with no thought to conservation or forestry. Some of the scars are still noticeable, but most of the heavily cut areas are now partly clothed with forest growth, and many areas have fine stands of young ponderosa.

The largest lumbering operations are in the vast ponderosa pine stand on the Colorado Plateau, which extends unbroken from the Gila Wilderness Area in New Mexico almost 300 miles northwest toward the Grand Canyon.

A typical operation is the one that is centered at Flagstaff, in the heart of the Coconino National Forest. During the past 70 years the local mills have cut more than a billion board feet from 350,000 acres. The two large mills and several saw mills can continue to cut about 60 million board feet a year of national forest timber on a sustained basis. More than 40 million board feet of sawlogs a year are brought in 34 miles by a logging railroad from the virgin stands of ponderosa pine south of Flagstaff. Large trucks deliver logs to the railhead from as far away as the Mogollon Rim. Sawlogs cut near the established mills are trucked directly to the mills.

The lumber industry has a capital investment of about 3 million dollars in sawmills, box factories, cut-up plants, and power plants in the Flagstaff community. The industry depends almost wholly on timber from the national forest. It provides employment for about 750 persons. Wages paid amount to 1 3/4 million dollars a year. The Flagstaff community depends to a large extent on the maintenance of a stable forest-products industry.

North of Flagstaff and across the Grand Canyon is a unique island of commercial ponderosa pine timber--1 1/2 billion board feet on the 184,000 acres of national forest land on the Kaibab Plateau. For centuries only Indians used it. In the 1870's Mormons settled in the lowlands, 30 miles or so to the north near the Utah-Arizona line, and operated one or two small sawmills intermittently.

Highways first tapped the Kaibab Plateau soon after the Marble Canyon bridge was completed across the Colorado River in 1928. The plateau is the home of the famous Kaibab mule deer herd; there, also, Theodore Roosevelt hunted the mountain lion. It is an isolated region from the center of the timber, the nearest railroad on the north is 140 miles away; on the south, 175 miles.

No wonder, then, that the large body of ponderosa pine on the Kaibab Plateau was relatively untouched until the Second World War. Good highways, good trucks, the scarcity of good timber, and high prices came together at about the same time. Timber was sold, mills were installed, and for the first time lumber moved to the outside world. Now lumber moves on large trucks over the Marble Canyon bridge, across the desert, past the wind-swept hogans of the Navajo Indians, and thence to markets over the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. The closest mill to the Santa Fe Railroad is 165 miles; the farthest, 205 miles. The development is typical of the western pioneer days, but it happened in the early 1940's.

The future for the Kaibab Plateau timber looks bright. The opportunity is there for an integrated manufacturing and remanufacturing industry on a substantial and continuing scale. New highways will reduce the distance to the railroad. After 80 years, the local people are assured of employment opportunities in a basic manufacturing industry. At the same time, the other values of wildlife, recreation, water production, and grazing of livestock need not be impaired if the timber harvest is orderly and management of the forest is careful.

In much of central Arizona and in northern New Mexico the operations are small. Most of the sawmills have a circular head saw and annually cut 1/2 million to 5 million board feet of rough green lumber. They are located in interior forest communities, where the inhabitants depend on the local resources of water, forage, and the harvesting and manufacture of forest crops.

A TYPICAL CASE is the operation at Vallecitos, in the Carson National Forest in New Mexico. The established operator there cut annually a million board feet or less before 1948. Trucks hauled the rough green lumber 63 miles to the nearest railroad shipping point. Employment was furnished to 8 or 10 persons. The sawmill was poorly located in relation to the available timber and existing roads.

Technicians were called in to analyze the situation at Vallecitos. They decided the annual cut should be not less than 1 1/2 million board feet. The operator said he would relocate the mill, install seasoning and finishing facilities, construct a small box factory or cut-up plant to utilize low-grade material, and continue to use local labor and furnish lumber at regular prices to people nearby if he were assured a stable supply of timber. If that were done, employment would be increased up to 400 percent, the annual wages would be increased by as much as $30,000, and the communities of Vallecitos, Canyon Plaza, and Petaca would be helped materially.

Accordingly, under section 3 of the Sustained-Yield Unit Act, steps were taken to establish a Federal Sustained-Yield Unit. At the required public hearing on the proposal, in December 1947, more than 100 residents attended to get information, ask questions, and make comments. They agreed that the unit would be a good thing.

On January 21, 1948, the Vallecitos Federal Sustained-Yield Unit was formally established, the first of its kind in the United States. In the year since, progress has been made in carrying out the declared policy for the unit: In 70 years, then, lumbering in the Southwest has progressed from logging with oxen and cutting ties for railroads to big wheels and logging railroads, to modern trucks and complete manufacturing facilities, and, finally, to the integrated plant in little Vallecitos, whose life and livelihood are actually determined by the life of the forest.

THE NATIONAL FORESTS, which embrace two-thirds of the commercial timberland in the Southwest, were established at the turn of the century.

At first, cutting was directed toward leaving thrifty seed trees and protecting the few poles and sparse reproduction. But with research, experience, improved fire protection and establishment of reproduction, and improvements in logging and transportation facilities, the cutting practices have gradually changed, and they have progressed through various steps the cutting of selected groups of trees, the heavy cutting of selected individual trees, and light cutting of selected trees to improve the growth of the stand.