FOREST SERVICE. 217 



it is, but also of knowledge as to the possible growth of timber; for 

 on that growth depends the ability of the industries and wood users 

 to get timber in the future. Dehnite plans for the control of the 

 rate and place of cutting within logical economic and transportation 

 units are being prepared on the national forests, in order that one of 

 the primary purposes for their creation, "to furnish a continuous 

 supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United 

 States" (in the words of the basic act of June 4, 1897) , may be accom- 

 plished. The plans necessitate a careful inventory of the forest and 

 thorough study of its producing power. They are being prepared as 

 fast as available funds will permit, taking first those forests and 

 parts of forests where the call for timber is most pressing. 



Meanwhile, applications for new large sales, involving the building 

 of railroads and of new manufacturing plants, are creating demands 

 which strain the resources of the service. The cruising and appraisal 

 of the timber preparatory to sale and the administration of the 

 sales will require more men and money at a rate commensurate 

 with the increase in the business. It was only with great difficulty 

 and at a sacrifice of other urgent work that, near the close of the 

 fiscal year, a body of timber estimated to cut 890,000,000 board 

 feet was cruised and appraised in Oregon in response to an urgent 

 application, Tliis timber is now being advertised, and if one or more 

 bids are received its sale will result in building a new mill, which 

 should be permanent, and a new railroad through an agricultural 

 district adjacent to the forest. In another case, 235,000,000 board 

 feet of timber was sold on the vSnocjualmie National Forest in Wash- 

 ington. This timber, together with that on intermingled private 

 lands, will form a 10-year supply for a new permanent mill. The 

 largest sale made during the year was on the Lassen National Ijjprest 

 in California, where nearly a billion feet of timber was placed under 

 a 30-year contract with a cooperative association of fruit growers. 

 This sale and the plan for handling the timber on adjacent forest 

 lands assure these fruit growers a permanent supply of lumber for 

 boxes and other requirements. 



It is not only lumber companies that secure timber from the 

 national forests. Nearly 6,000 farmers get it each year at the cost 

 of administering the sales under the provisions of the act of August 10, 

 1912; fishermen on the coast of Alaska buy fish- trap piling and 

 timbers; the coal mining companies, and the copper producers in 

 Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and other States buy mine 

 timbers; railroads are supplied with ties, and telephone, telegraph, 

 and power companies with poles; pulp and paper mills get pulpwood; 

 the turpentine distiller buys the right to tap carefully certain kinds 

 of trees for the pitch or "gum" from which turpentine and rosin are 

 produced. Manufacturers of furniture, excelsior, barrels, toothpicks, 

 tennis rackets, crutches, shoe pegs, violins, tannic acid, charcoal, and 

 many other things look to the forests as sources of raw material; 

 even the medicine manufacturers draw on the forests, for they obtain 

 there several thousand pounds of cascara bark a year. Only by 

 careful, consistent management in accordance with well thought out 

 plans can these demands continue to be met indefinitely tnrough 

 having timber grow as fast as it is cut. 



As pointed out last year, the opportunity for developing permanent 

 instead of short-lived wood-using industries is especially good in 



