184 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ties, assembled, mapped, checked, and 

 weighed in the office, are reliable within a 

 relatively small margin of error. All fig- 

 ures relate to merchantable saw timber, in 

 terms of lumber yield. The unit "board 

 foot" is a foot square and an inch thick. 



CoNtENTRATION OK TIMBER OWNERSHIP. — 



Three vast holdings alone, the greatest in 

 the country, those of the Southern Pacific 

 Company, the Weyerhaeuser Timber Com- 

 ber company, and the Northern Pacific 

 Railway Company (including their sub- 

 sidiary companies), together have 23S bil- 

 lion feet, or nearly 11 per cent of all our 

 privately owned timber. They have 14 per 

 cent of that in the "investigation area." 

 Witn the five next largest they have over 

 15 per cent of the total privately owned 

 timber and over 19 per cent of tnat within 

 the investigation area. Finally, nearly one- 

 half (48 per cent) of the private timber 

 in that area is held by only 195 great 

 holders. The term "holder" covers any 

 single Interest — individual, corporate, or 

 group — which is so united as to be under 

 one control. 



The Pacific-Northwest. — Five-elevenths of 

 the country's privately owned standing 

 timber is in the Pacific-Northwest (Cali- 

 fornia, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and 

 Montana), 1,013 billion feet. One-half of 

 this is now owned by 37 holders; many of 

 these are closely connected. The three 

 largest holders (named above) alone have 

 nearly one-quarter. This section now fur- 

 nishes only one-sixth of the annual cut. 

 Thus its timber is being largely held for 

 the future, and the large owners there will 

 then be the dominating influence in the 

 industry. 



The Southern Pacific Company holding 

 is the greatest in the United States — 106 

 billion feet. This is about G per cent of 

 the private timber in the investigation 

 area, and 10 per cent of that in the Pa- 

 cific-Northwest. It is difficult to give an 

 adequate idea of its immensity. It stretches 

 practically 680 miles along that railroad 

 between Portland and Sacramento. The 

 fastest train over this distance takes 31 

 hours. During all that time the traveler 

 thereon is passing through lands a large 

 proportion of whicn for 30 miles on each 

 side belongs to the railroad, and in almost 

 the entire strip this corporation is the 

 dominating owner of both timber and land. 



The second largest holder is the Weyer- 

 haeuser Timber Company (including its 

 subsidiary companies), with 96 billion 

 feet. This does not include further very 

 extensive timber interests of the Weyer- 

 haeuser family and close associates. 



These two holdings would supply the 

 46,584 sawmills in the country for four 

 and twothirds years. They have one- 

 eleventh of our total private timber. 



The third largest, the Northern Pacific 

 Railway Company, has 36 billion feet. 



TheFC three holdings have enough stand- 

 ing timber to build an ordinary 5 or 6 

 room frame house for each of the 16,- 

 000,000 families in the United States In 



1900. If sawed into lumber and placed 

 in cars, their timber would load a train 

 about 100,000 miles long. 



The holdings of the two railroad com- 

 panies are government grants, and 80 per 

 cent of the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company 

 holding was bought from the Northern Pa- 

 cific grant. Many other large holdings 

 (here and in other regions) were mainly 

 purchased from some land grant. 



Southern Pine Region. — In the Southern 

 Pine Region there are 634 billion feet of 

 privately owned timber. Concentration in 

 total timber is much less than in the Pa- 

 cific-Northwest. There is, however, a high 

 concentration in the more valuable species, 

 longleaf yellow pine and cypress. Sixty- 

 seven holders own 39 per cent of the long- 

 leaf yellow pine, 29 per cent of the cypress, 

 19 per cent of the shortleat and loblolly 

 pine, and 11 per cent of the hardwoods. 



The Lake States. — In Minnesota, Wis- 

 consin, and Michigan there are 100 billion 

 feet of privately owned timber. In Wis- 

 consin 96 holders have three-fourths of all 

 the timber. In Michigan 113 holders have 

 66 per cent. In Minnesota 6 holders have 

 54 per cent of the very valuable white and 

 Norwa.v pine, 16 per cent of the other coni- 

 fers, and 2 per cent of the hardwoods. 

 Taking all three states, 215 holders have 

 65 per cent of all the timber. 



Effect of concentration. — Such concen- 

 tration in standing timber, if permitted 

 to continue and increase, makes probable 

 a final central control of the whole lumber 

 industry. A few strong interests, ulti- 

 mately holding the bulk of the timber, can 

 set the price of timber and its products. 

 The manager of the National Lumber Man- 

 ufacturers' Association recently said to 

 lumbermen on the Pacific coast: 



"The day of cheap lumber is passing and 

 soon will be gone, but the men who make 

 the money will be those who own timber 

 and can hold it until the supply in other 

 parts of the country is gone. Then they 

 can ask and get their own price." 



Certain further factors, not exactly 

 measurable, increase still more the real 

 concentration. First, a further interweav- 

 ing of interests, corporate and personal, 

 connects a great many holdings which the 

 Bureau has treated as separate; second, 

 there are very large totals of timber so 

 scattered in small tracts through larger 

 holdings that they are substantially 

 "blocked In" or "controlled" by the larger 

 holders: third, the concentration is much 

 higher in the more valuable species. 



General information obtained indicates a 

 very high concentration in timber owner- 

 ship outside the investigation area. 



Policy of great hoeders. — The largest 

 holders are cutting little of their timber. 

 They thus reserve to themselves those in- 

 calculable profits which are still to accrue 

 with the growth of the country, the dimin- 

 ishing of timber supply, and the further 

 concentration and control thereof. Many 

 of ihe very men who are protesting against 

 conservation and the national forest system 



