DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING. 



65 



was chosen, not because it represents the most common 

 type of natural forest, but because it illustrates better 

 than any other the life and progress of forest growtb. 

 (See PI. XXXIII.) 



The wood of a tree which dies in the forest is almost 

 wholly wasted. For a time the rotting trunk may serve 

 to retain moisture, but there is little use for the carbon, 

 oxygen, and hydro- 

 gen which make up 

 its greater part. The 

 mineral constituents 

 alone form a useful 

 fertilizer, but most 

 often there is al- 

 ready an abundance 

 of similar material 

 in the soil. Xot only 

 is the old tree lost, 

 but ever since its ma- 

 turity it has done lit- 



tie more than intercept, to no good purpose, the light 

 which would otherwise have given vitality to a valuable 

 crop of younger trees. It is only when the ripe wood 

 is harvested properly and in time that the forest attains 

 its hiohest usefulness. 



Fig. 62. — Luiiibered aud buiiit'd forest uear 

 Port Crescent, Olympic Peninsula, Wash- 

 iniiton. 



DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING. 



A second thing which may happen to a forest is to be 

 cut down without care for the future. The yield of a 

 forest lumbered in the usual way is more or less thor- 

 oughly harvested, it is true, but at an enormous cost to 

 the forest. Ordinary lumbering injures or destroys the 

 young growth, both in the present and for the future. 



