LOGGING ON A NATIONAL FOREST. 



By SIDNEY L. MOORE. 



Assistant District Forester 



now do lumbering operations on the Government's National Forests 

 differ from those of the private company upon its own lands?" is a 

 question constantly asked by interested lumbermen for the reason that 

 the exploitation of stumpage purchased from the Government is daily under- 

 taken by an increasing number of lumbermen who have no timber supply of 

 their own or have exhausted their holdings. This meant to be a brief, pictorial 

 description of a large lumbering operation upon the Bighorn National Forest 

 in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, showing the progress of the timber 

 from the stump to the mill yard. It makes plain that the differences between 

 logging on private and on government lands are slight in so far as they 

 affect the pocketbook or profits of the logger. On the other hand, the slight 

 differences in methods which do exist, while costing but little to the logger, 

 make a tremendous difference in favor of protecting the existing forest and 

 encouraging future growth. 



In this particular operation the timber consists of lodgepole pine, of 

 which there are heavy stands located in the Bighorn Mountains at an elevation 

 of from 8,500 to 9,300 feet, some twenty-five miles from the nearest railroad. 

 The most valuable product of this operation is railroad cross-ties, but the 

 operator also manufactures and sells mine timbers and lumber. The timber 

 is manufactured in two mills, a small sawmill located in the mountains and 

 the main mill twenty miles away in the valley, on a side track of the main 

 line of the railroad. The logs, ties and such dimension stuff as is cut at the 

 smaller or upper mill are shipped in a V-shaped water flume 25 miles through 

 the mountains to the large mill and yards below. 



Views Nos. 1 and 2 show the virgin stands of lodgepole timber before 

 they have been touched by the ax. The timber is naturally of rather small 

 size, ranging from 12 to 24 inches in diameter, but these sizes are especially 

 suitable for the production of railroad ties and mining timbers, with a limited 

 quantity of "side lumber.'' 



View No. 3 shows the forest after it has been cut and the logs and ties 

 removed. In this picture are shown the piles of brush made from the top of 

 the tree which could not be utilized. AVhen operating on National Forests, the 

 logger must pile the brush and refuse as shown here, but the extra cost 



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