FOREST SERVICE. 363 



The year was characterized by a marked depression in the lumber 

 markets of many portions of the West, a depression resulting in 

 several localities in prices for manufactured lumber of fi'om $2 to S3 

 per thousand board feet less than those of 1906 and 1907. This 

 depression was most acute on the northern Pacific coast, in the 

 Douglas fir belt, where practically no additional sales were made and 

 operations under several existing sales were suspended owing to the 

 inability of the purchasers to market their product. This depression 

 also affected seriously the demand for National Forest timber in the 

 Douglas fir and lodgepole pine belt of the northern and central Rocky 

 Mountains, from which considerable quantities had previously been 

 sold for local uses, mining timbers, railroad crossties, and timbers 

 for structural purposes. The general suspension of construction 

 work by many railroads and the reduction m output on the part of 

 various mining and manufacturing companies have reduced the 

 demand for National Forest timber and even made it difficult or 

 impossible to continue operations under some old sales. 



The demand for pine timber on the National Forests of western 

 Montana, northern Idaho, and eastern Oregon, and in the Sierra 

 Nevada Mountains of California, Arizona, and southern Colorado, 

 has remained fairly firm. This material has felt the general depres- 

 sion relatively less, because it is in good demand in the general market 

 and has a considerable variety of uses. A number of additional 

 sales were made on these Forests, and the bulk of the year's cutw^as 

 confined to them. The operations in the pine forests mentioned, 

 together with sales supplying primarily local industries less affected 

 by general market conditions, kept the cut very close to that during 

 the preceding fiscal year, the difference being less than 5,000,000 feet. 



In spite of the poor market conditions an anticipated revival of 

 more active demand resulted in a marked increase in the amount of 

 timber sold, as compared \vith the preceding year, an increase 

 amounting to 44.5 per cent in the quantity and 51.5 per cent in the 

 value of the material disposed of. The policy adopted during the 

 year of making sales for larger amounts and longer cutting periods 

 where the investment necessary called for this course was an impor- 

 tant factor in the increase in sales. 



The disastrous fires of 1910 had the immediate effect of canceling 

 two large sales in western Montana and northern Idaho, covering 

 areas where a large portion of the timber was killed. This in itself 

 caused a reduction in timber-sale receipts of from $50,000 to $100,000 

 during the year. 



Twenty-three per cent of the timber cut and 11 per cent of the 

 timber sold was fire-killed material. Including one sale of 1 00,000,000 

 feet, previously reported sold as green timber, but resold during the 

 year as fire-killed, 21 per cent of the total amount sold was dead 

 timber. The effort to dispose of the stands of fire-killed timber 

 resulted in the sale of approximately 190,000,000 feet subsequent to 

 the close of the fiscal year. The inaccessibility of much of the fire- 

 killed timber will prevent its disposal before it becomes unmerchant- 

 able, but every possible effort wdl be made to salvage the maximum 

 amount of this material. In some instances the efforts of the Service 

 to dispose of the dead timber have been very successful. On the 

 Pike National Forest in Colorado, for example, sales during the past 



