360 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Standing timber during normal conditions and to depreciate the value 

 of its stumpiige by lowering prices to meet temporary fluctuations in 

 the lumber market. The great body of National Forest timber is 

 looked upon as a public security whicli it is the duty of the Service 

 to maintain at par value, a value which should increase as the supply 

 from other sources is lessened and which protects the public interests 

 represented in these national holdings. Since 1907 a general depres- 

 sion, more or less acute in difl'erent portions of the West, has pre- 

 vailed in the lumber market. A reduction in stumpage prices adapted 

 to depreciated lumber prices would have materially mcreased Na- 

 tional Forest sales during this period. 



At the cost of a considerable sacrifice of receipts the Service has 

 declined to make sales under such conditions, believing that the 

 interests of the people in the National Forests, both as joint owners 

 of the property which these ForQsts represent and as consumers of 

 lumber, require the withholding of timber from the market until 

 more favorable terms could be secured. In fact, the timber sold last 

 year brought a higher price than during the preceding fiscal year, the 

 average rate being $2.56 per thousand feet in 1911, as compared with 

 $2.44 in 1910. The timber cut during the year paid an average 

 stumpage price of $2.25 per thousand feet, as compared with $2.36 

 in the fiscal year 1910, this diflercnce being due to increased opera- 

 tions under some of the older contracts which made lower rates. 



The requirement of methods of logging w^hich wherever possible 

 leave the basis for a second cut of timber on the ground, and which 

 in all cases will insure the protection of the cut-over area and its 

 speedy restocking with forest growth, is another essential feature of 

 the sale policy of the Forest Service which should not be sacrificed in 

 order to sell more timber. In many instances a third of the merchant- 

 able stand is reserved, consisting of younger and thriftier timber, as 

 a basis for a second cut within a maximum period of 50 years. In 

 other cases where this is not practicable the restocking of the ground 

 is insured by the reservation of a sufficient number of seed-bearing 

 trees and careful protection of the seedling and sapling growth on the 

 area. In all sales adequate protective measures are enforced, either 

 by piling and burning slash resulting fi'om cutting on the entire tract 

 or by constructing fire breaks around the sale area and burning the 

 slash clean within these breaks. Close utilization of all merchantable 

 material in the trees cut is insisted upon. These measures are essen- 

 tial to the perpetuation of the timber supply on the Forest areas 

 where cutting is permitted, the establishment of definite standards 

 of conservative lumbering, and the elimination of the wasteful use of 

 forest products. The requirements of National Forest timber con- 

 tracts m these respects, while framed to meet the methods of logging 

 necessary in each locality, should be such as will not only amply 

 protect the future forest resources on the public hoMings, out also 

 establish standards of forestry practice which will sooner or later be 

 applied to private timberlands. 



The prevention of monopoly in the timber-sale policy of the Service 

 has been constantly enforced. It has been found, however, that the 

 appfication of this poficy is not inconsistent with sales of large amounts 

 of timber under comparatively long cutting periods in localities where 

 there is fittle or no local demand and the timber must, if used at all, 



