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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the slow process of pulling it down and 

 saving the material. 



Here in the west the ground where 

 our timber grows is covered to the 

 depth of several feet with mold and 

 moss, decayed timber and fallen tree 

 trunks that have lost out in their strug- 

 gle to reach sunlight. Over all and be- 

 neath our big trees the brush is thick 

 and many little trees are struggling 

 for life. Then comes the timber faller, 

 and the tops and limbs of our big fir, 

 cedar and spruce are piled on the cover 

 and help protect the ground, in the 

 chopping, from the sun. 



Many low .grade and young trees 

 and hemlock are left standing. An old 

 chopping has a timber land appearance 

 in some parts, for what we do is not to 

 cut all but only that adapted to our 

 present market. Our process is the 

 selection of the fittest — the keynote of 

 American forestry. Now keep out fire 

 and we become true conservationists, 

 for some day we will again return for 

 the fittest and later for the best of the 

 new crop and thus perpetuate our for- 

 ests. 



Those long familiar with western 

 lumber conditions wdll remember the 

 time when we had only a coastwise 

 market, with an occasional foreign 

 order, and no thought of ever shipping 

 by rail. They will remember all coast- 

 wise cargoes were tallied and graded at 

 destination and the grades were mer- 

 chantable, refuse and firewood. 



Firewood returned freight only ; re- 

 fuse returned freight and cost to saw ; 

 merchantable, which included all we 

 now call select and most of the clear, 

 brought freight, cost to saw and cost of 

 the log. Any profit had to come from 

 the little flooring we made or some 

 special order. 



When lumber could be had for such 

 prices customers wanted only the best, 

 so the dealers wanted only the best, 

 and the mills wanted only the best logs, 

 and the loggers could use only the best 

 of the best trees. For such logs the 

 mill paid four dollars to four dollars 

 and fifty cents a thousand feet. Any- 

 thing falling below their standard re- 

 ceived four notches, which meant "Not 



scaled but taken by the mill for full 

 measure." To repeat, the buyer de- 

 manded the best and that the dealer 

 must furnish or go to the wall. The 

 logger must furnish what the mill 

 wanted or go to the wall. 



Up to 1897 fir logs had seldom sold 

 for more than $4.50 and stumpage had 

 seldom been higher than 50 cents a 

 thousand. The best quarter section of 

 timber, under those conditions, cut less 

 than 6,000,000 feet. Six million was 

 the limit, as 12,000,000 to 14,000,000 is 

 the limit to-day. We must then have 

 left the other 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 in 

 the old choppings ; part in trees not up 

 to grade, part in the hemlock and cedar 

 not then wanted, part in high stumps, 

 but mostly in long tops. Those days 

 we took two logs out of many a tree 

 which we would take four or five logs 

 to-day, and those 40 feet long. 



Had it occurred to you to ask what 

 has become of the 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 

 feet we left behind on each quarter 

 section? You all know of many old 

 choppings where fire has followed fire, 

 and where there is no living shrub, and 

 hundreds of branchless stubs, telling by 

 their unsightly skeletons what might 

 have been had no fires reached them. 



You also can recall, or find, if you 

 will, old choppings where no fire has 

 ever run. These you will have perhaps 

 passed by as original forests, for such 

 they look to be. But examine them 

 more closely — hundreds of tall trees are 

 standing, hemlocks perhaps in part, but 

 none the less valuable twenty years 

 from now. And beneath and between 

 these taller trees is a thick growth of 

 young fir, spruce, cedar and hemlock, 

 of all ages, rank, thrifty, giving prom- 

 ise of more timber to each acre, thirty 

 or forty years hence, than was produced 

 by the original crop. 



Now look again. Crawl through that 

 jungle and you will find many a moss 

 covered top of the fathers of this young 

 forest, and that top will often be 40 or 

 50 inches in diameter and 150 feet long, 

 for its father was cut when timber was 

 cheap, and that condition means waste: 

 that timber was cut when 6,000,000 was 

 a larjje vield. The other 6.000,000 left 



