MANAGEMENT OF CUT^OVER LANDS 



' By GEORGE H, EMERSON, 



of the Northwestern Lumber Company, Hoquiam, Washington 



(This address was deHvered by Col. Emerson at a meeting of the Washington State 

 Commission on Forest Legislation in Seattle, October 8. As sane conservation doctrine by 

 a practical lumberman, and as an answer to the self-interested ideas of certain large timber 

 owners in California, referred to in tbe last number of this magazine, it deserves wide 

 readingv — Eid.) 



CHOPPINGS differ in dift"erent 

 parts of this state. East of 

 the mountains our pine grows 

 with Httle or no underbrush, and 

 when the trees are cut there is no 

 doubt but what the tops should be 

 limbed, piled in openings and burned, 

 leaving the ground clear to reproduce 

 timber, or grass, or both. West of the 

 mountains all is different, and it is re- 

 specting west of the mountains I write. 

 Here choppings divide into those where 

 the ground is suited to agriculture and 

 those where it is valuable only for tim- 

 ber. It is to choppings on land valu- 

 able only for timber that I wish to con- 

 fine your attention. The greater por- 

 tion of our choppings come under this 

 head — a much larger portion than is 

 commonly thought 



It has been the custom of the Ameri- 

 can people to burn their choppings. 

 Beginning with the landing of the Pil- 

 grims the fires have never been out 

 when the weather permitted the chop- 

 pings to burn. In all things Americans 

 have looked for quick returns, always 

 ready to discard or destroy all that 

 could not be turned immediately to their 

 use, or sold at a profit. 



It is said, by those who know, that 

 more natural gas is going to waste than 

 would furnish fuel for all purposes if 

 utilized, gas that has been tapped when 

 drilling for oil and discarded when 

 not oil ; that r.-'ore coal is destroyed 

 by mining the lower high grade strata, 

 and allowing all above to fall and mix 

 with dirt, than is at present used. Cat- 

 tle were once killed for hides, buffalo 



for robes, elks for horns and teeth, deer 

 for pelts, and forests were burned for 

 hunting ground, but in nothing has 

 this waste been more marked than in 

 the use of our soil. 



As a nation we have cropped with 

 little attempt to conserve or replace 

 that which we have taken from the 

 farm. The result is shown in the older 

 parts of our country. Farms are aban- 

 doned because exhausted ; their values 

 have steadily declined and tlieir owners 

 have drifted to apply the same methods 

 to new lands and on these new lands 

 they return nothing to the soil, and soon 

 are reduced to twelve bushels of wheat 

 where they once raised twice that 

 amount, and where countries tilled a 

 thousand years, by careful methods, 

 harvest three times that much. 



All timber lands have accumulated 

 leaf mold that if saved and mixed with 

 the subsoil w^ould render it productive, 

 but this mold is combustible when dry, 

 and from Maine to the Pacific it has 

 been burned, because of the easy 

 method of reaching the ground — the 

 old process of killing for hides, horns 

 and teeth. If our settlers could care- 

 fully save the forest soil they now burn, 

 or clear their lands without destroying 

 it. thev would make a great stride in 

 conservation. 



It is so easy to burn a chopping and 

 see that v/hich is not wanted drift 

 away in smoke ; so handy after the 

 heads are removed from the grain to 

 have the fire clear the stubble for the 

 plow ; so nice when one wants a new 

 home to burn up the old one. instead of 



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