382 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



are planned witli a view to securino;, by one and the same oj)eration, 

 the in<i:athorinj; of the rij)onotl crop and the sowing; of a new crop. The 

 only cases in whicli this is not true are when the cutting; is applied as 

 a means of stimulalini;; increased fi;rowth in established stands with 

 utilization at the same time of thesurj)his material removed, and when 

 the conditions are such that artificial reforestation will be resorted to 

 in order to establish a satisfactory new stand. Taking care of an exist- 

 ing; stand without provision for the growth of a new supply when all 

 that is now growing is gone is not forestry, but enlightened lumbering 

 and no more. The Forest Service is not merely protecting the pres- 

 ent stock of timber on the National Forests in order to sell it off when 

 opportunity arises ; it is i)racticing forestry upon them. 



From the standpoint of forestry the first need of the Forests is the 

 replenishment of growing stock on the enormous acreage which has 

 been fireswept in the past. Contrary to a prevalent belief the present 

 stand is largely a depleted stand. Although the cutting in the 

 National Forests in the past has been very limited, there has been an. 

 enormous destruction at different periods by forest fires. Because of 

 the limited lumbering on the National P'orests as a whole they are 

 usually classed as virgin. Hence the common supposition that they 

 are almost everywhere fully stocked with heavy timber. This is far 

 from true. From time immemorial there have been forest fires in the 

 western mountains, and there are evidences of fire in nearly every 

 Forest. The ancient fires were doubtless started for the most part 

 by the Indians and from lightning. Their result was a smaller aver- 

 age stand than the forests would otherwise have borne. With the 

 advance of settlement many fires started along the railroads and 

 through carelessness of the early hunters, prospectors, and settlers. 

 These fires not only were ver}" numerous, but often covered enormous 

 areas and destroyed great bodies of timber. In some cases very 

 extensive forests were entireh^ wiped out. 



When a Forest is destroyed by fire, there is a gradual restoration, 

 of the original conditions. If the clearing is very large and all seed 

 trees w^ere destroyed, this natural replacement of the Forest may take 

 centuries. There are to-da}^, in every Forest, areas covered by 

 immature timber of diflerent ages, and there are also very extensive 

 areas, burned within the last half centur}^, which are to-day prac- 

 tically devoid of trees, or very sparsely covered with them. In 

 short, as a result of past fires the National Forests are in a condition 

 more like that of eastern forest regions in which lumbering and fire 

 together have left some areas stripped, some reproducing imperfectly, 

 some covered with half-grown timber, and some still untouched, than 

 like a normal virgin forest. Conditions differ in the two regions less 

 in kind than in the point to which the process of destruction has 

 advanced. 



It is the policy of the Government to put to use the timber which 

 is mature, to protect carefully the trees worth leaving for further 

 growth, to replace promptly by new growth timber which is cut and 

 utilized, and to extend the Forest by artificial sowing or seeding over 

 the areas stripped of timber by previous fires. 



So far as practicable, the aim is to cut first those bodies of timber 

 which have passed maturity and have begun to deteriorate. The 

 disposal of such timber, however, is dependent on the demand for it. 

 Often the stands which are in the most need of cutting are remote 



