THE WORLD'S GREATEST WOODLOT 



635 



value gives the forester a particular 

 interest in this region. The white fir 

 of the coast, much like the eastern 

 balsam, makes its appearance here, also 

 hemlock, and occasionally a paper birch. 

 The highest mountains have several al- 

 pine conifers of no commercial value. 



Northeastern Washington and the 

 east slope of the Cascades as far south 

 as northern California, being sheltered 

 from the Pacific rain-winds, return 

 somewhat to Rocky Mountain condi- 

 tions and bear chiefly forests of high 

 quality western yellow pine, invaded 

 more or less by lodgepole where recur- 

 ring fires prevent yellow pine reproduc- 

 tion and shading into tamarack and fir 

 at higher altitudes. Occasionally the 

 same Engelman spruce of the Rockies 

 occurs in some numbers. Inroad leaved 

 trees, except the ever-present cotton- 

 wood and aspen, are lacking as else- 

 where in the interior west. 



The next distinct type is the famous 

 one associated with the Pacific north- 

 west in the minds of all lumbermen and 

 foresters — the famous fir forests of the 

 rainy region between the Cascade range 

 and the sea. In nearly pure stands or 

 mixed with cedar, hemlock. Sitka 

 spruce, white tir and the other commer- 

 cial trees in which this region is so 

 rich, fir here reaches what foresters call 

 the optimism of a species — its most per- 

 fect development — and this most wide- 

 ly useful of American trees often at- 

 tains a height of 200 feet, a diameter 

 of S to 12 feet, and in favored locations 

 vields more than 75,000 feet, board 

 measure, to the acre. Its frequent com- 

 panion, western hemlock, is scarcely less 

 magniticent in size or less valuable, 

 being quite difl'erent from its eastern 

 name.sake. In the mountains these spe- 

 cies mix with white pine and with the 

 noble and amabilis firs (sometimes er- 

 roneouslv called larch), both woods of 

 high value although comparatively little 

 known, and in the highest situations is 

 found the handsome cabinet wood. 

 Alaska cedar. 



Through this region, the nioister lo- 

 calities produce the giant red cedar, 

 two-thirds the nation's cedar supply 

 coming from western Washington and 

 Oregon. Along the coast Sitka or tide- 



land spruce the largest and finest of 

 the world's spruces, extends southward 

 till its predominance as a special coast 

 tree is usurped by Port Orford cedar, 

 which in turn gives way to redwood. 

 The Pacific northwest forest also in- 

 cludes, although much more sparingly 

 in quantity and inferior in quality than 

 the eastern hardwood regions, maple, 

 ash. alder, laurel and oak, and the 

 world's supply of the medicinal cascara. 

 Paper mills use its spruce, hemlock, fir 

 and Cottonwood for pulp. Its oak is 

 not of the highest value, but useful. 



About midway southward through 

 Oregon, the Cascade type changes 

 again, the red fir and western yellow 

 pine persisting but the peculiarly north- 

 ern trees giving way gradually to sugar 

 pine, incense cedar, Shasta fir, and other 

 less imixjrtant species, all making up 

 the representative forest of Northern 

 California. Sugar pine, the largest of 

 the American pines and much like white 

 l)ine in quality — a truly noble tree — is 

 the most valuable. The California foot- 

 hills also have several local pines of 

 small importance. 



The famous California redwood oc- 

 cupies a strip of perhaps thirty miles 

 wide from the Oregon line to Santa 

 Cruz. California, sometimes pure and 

 sometimes containing red and white fir 

 in mixture. The Bigtree, a close cousin, 

 occurs only in a few groves in the 

 southern Sierras. California is rich in 

 oak species, including many beautiful 

 live oaks, but few are of high lumber 

 value. On the other hand the Cal- 

 ifornia tan oak, abundant on the coast 

 of southern Oregon and northern Cal- 

 ifornia, produces high-grade bark for 

 tanning and often is worth as much 

 per acre as fairly good timber land. 



Owing to the infinitely varying mix- 

 ture of species and the lack of any 

 widespread and uniform attempt to ar- 

 rive at their proportion through per- 

 centage systems, it would be a rash 

 guess even to approximate the available 

 c|uantity of each of the imjx)rtant com- 

 mercial species. Even the total is esti- 

 mated dit^'erently by different authori- 

 ties, not only because of varying infor- 

 mation sources, but also because the 

 standard of what is merchantable 



