REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 61 



ness without assurance of tonnage for a considerable term of years. 

 To meet this situation a large-sales policy has been worked out. It 

 includes provision for periodic readjustments of stumpage prices, 

 based on the changes which take place in lumber prices in the 

 markets where the timber is sold. The result of such sales is to 

 secure railroad development, opening the way to general economic 

 development, in entirely new fields; to make available for early use 

 limber, much of which would otherwise rot in the woods; and to 

 tap additional supplies of timber which can be sold to other pur- 

 chasers once the means of getting it to market has been created. 



The first necessity in making such sales is that the transportation 

 facilities developed shall be public. This is always made a part of 

 the contract. Railroads constructed for the operation must become 

 common carriers. Taken with the other safeguards against mo- 

 nopoly already described, the stipulations on this point are fully 

 adequate to protect the interests of consumers. Two sales of this 

 character were concluded during the year, and a score are now 

 pending. While it is not to be expected that all of these will be put 

 through, a large increase in the annual cut is practically assured 

 through the adoption of the large-sales policy. 



This policy in no sense supersedes that which seeks to encourage 

 small sales. On the contrary, it not only supplements that policy 

 but also extends the opportunity for its application. The small mill, 

 sawing for local supply, will enter the territory opened up by the 

 large operation as population flows in and trade, industry, and agri- 

 culture develop. Out of a total of 5,772 separate sales made last 

 year, 5,557 were for amounts under $500. 



The general principles which guide the timber-sale business as a 

 whole, therefore, are three: 



(1) Except for sales to settlers and homesteaders who want the 

 timber for their own domestic use, the actual market value of the 

 timber as it stands is secured. 



(2) Artificially high prices to the consumer through monopolistic 

 control of local markets are carefully guarded against. 



(3) The field of lumbering operations and the volume of cut are 

 being enlarged wherever an opportunity exists, and new opportu- 

 nities are being sought; except that the cut is not allowed to exceed 

 the sustained annual yield, nor are sales for the general market al- 

 lowed on forests where the local demand will utilize all the timber 

 that the forest can steadily produce. 



Pressure will undoubtedly be brought to bear increasingly as time 

 goes on and market prices go up for sales on some other basis than 

 that of the actual value of the timber. It will doubtless be said, as 

 it has been said already, that the Government by withdrawing the 

 National Forests from private acquisition has reduced the amount of 



