HARDWOOD RECORD 



25 



•the smaller and younger timber in stands where Toung and old trees 

 occur together, or of a small portion of the mature timber for reseeding. 

 as the conditions in each case may require. In forests of the latter type, 

 like the heavy Douglas fir stands of the west coast, the requirements of 

 forestry are satisfied by the reservation of but five or ten per cent of the 

 merchantable timber for reseeding purposes. In the forests of mixed 

 ages, like the yellow and sugar pine stands of California, the government 

 reserves from twenty-five to thirty-three per cent of the merchantable 

 stand. The aim in such forests is to leave a good stocking of smaller 

 timber which will justify another cutting in fifty or sixty years. The 

 second chief requirement in the interest of forestry is the disposal of 

 slashings either by piling and burning or by constructing firebreaks and 

 burning the brush as it lies. 



In disposing of ripe stumpage, the government has been handicapped 

 •by the inaccessibility of three-fourths of the timber on the national 

 forests and by the presence of larger quantities of privately owned stump- 

 age much closer to the markets and forced upon them in many cases by 

 bonded indebtedness, mill investments, and other carrying charges. The 

 tendency to overproduction in the manufacture of lumber from private 

 holdings and the broken markets in many parts of the west during 190!), 

 1910 and 1011 have been further factors limiting the capacity of the 

 government to sell the mature timber on its holdings which is in need 

 -of cutting. Since February 1. 1905. when the Forest Service assumed 

 charge of the national forests, the annual cut of stumpage has risen from 

 practically nothing to 431,000,000 feet, board measure, in the fiscal year 

 ended June 30, 1012. During the last fiscal year nearly 800.000.000 feet 

 of timber was sold, and up to May 1 in the present fiscal year over 

 1.800.000,000 feet has been placed under contract. Our sales business is 

 now increasing rapidly with the expansion of the lumbering industry in 

 the western states and the extension of transportation facilities in the 

 vicinity of the national forests. It is probable that within three years 

 the annual cut will reach 2.000.000.000 or 2,.')00.000.000 feet. 



It is roughly estimated that the annual growth on the national forests 

 aggregates 6,000,000.000 feet. This figure represents approximately the 

 interest returned on this public investment, the yield which can be cut 

 every .year without diminishing the supply. It is the policy of the Forest 

 "Service to increase the sales of national forest timber as rapidly as this 

 can be done at adequate prices and under stable contracts until the an- 

 nual cut approaches or equals the annual growth. Thereafter, -.except as 

 heavier cutting ma.v be advisable in certain localities for the time being to 

 remove deteriorating material, the annual cut will be restricted to the 

 .vield from the forests, a cut which can be maintained for all future time. 

 At First Glaxce 



At first glance it might appear that a more profitable business policy 

 would be to reserve the public timber largely or entirely from sale for 

 the time being. This course has been urged in many instances : First, 

 by conservationists who look ahead to the timber shortage and maintain 

 that the chief function of the national forests should be cold storage of a 

 large reserve supply ; second, by business men who point out that the 

 United States is in a position financially to curtail its present sales and 

 that much greater returns will be realized from marketing this timber 

 two or three decades hence when the shortage is beginning to make itself 

 felt : and third, by lumber manufacturers who raise the point that any 

 iiale of national forest timber tends to stimulate overproduction in the 

 industry and knock the bottom out of their markets. 



.\ strong private corporation whose main purpose was the greatest ulti- 

 mate financial return might unhesitatingly follow such a polic.v. The 

 aggregate capacity of the sawmills in the country now exceeds the normal 

 demand for lumber, which must be stimulated to absorb the cut by adver- 

 tisement and keen selling organizations. The many large operations which 

 are heavily bonded and can meet carrying charges only by manufacturing 

 and selling lumber and the large outstanding investments in manufactur 

 ing plants promise a sustained output almost regardless of the market 

 fluctuations. In other words, an industry organized along such highly 

 competitive lines must continue to deplete the available raw material at 

 a rate which is now generally put at three times the annual growth of 

 all of the forested lands of the United States. Under such conditions it 

 would seem unquestionably to be the better commercial policy for a strong 

 owner, like the United States government, to hold its stumpage : and 

 there is reasonable ground for the manufacturer of private stumpage 

 carrying heavy investments to feel that the government should keep out of 

 the market. 



An old piece of timber, in which net production is practically nil, can 

 by judicious cutting and protection be turned into a real forest in the 

 economic sense which is producing from 200 to as high as 800 board feet 

 of timber annually on every acre. This work of remaking old forests by 

 conservative cutting can not be pushed by the government blindly, or in 

 disregard of the limits fixed by business prudence and proper recognition 

 of the commercial value of the material which is marketed in the process. 

 Furthermore, limitations placed on the amount of timber cut from na- 

 tional forests by their inaccessibility and the competition with private 

 timber to which I have referred necessarily will prevent the complete 

 working over of the forests for many years. It is doubtless fortunate 

 that a considerable portion of the surplus stock of virgin stumpage on 

 the public holding should by these very limitations be kept out of the 

 market for the next fifteen or twenty years. 



In many instances, furthermore, the cutting of national forest stumpage 

 Is vitally related to local industries. It may be a local need for timber 



which can not be supplied so cheaply or effectively from any other source, 

 or the general economic development of an isolated region which awaits 

 transportation and a dominate local industry. Under such circumstances 

 a restrictive sales policy would impose wholly unjustified checks upon the 

 development of regions which properly regard their claims upon national 

 forests as entitled to preference. 



Other practical considerations prevent the adoption of the most advan- 

 tageous commercial policy in the administration of national forest timber. 



Critics of the Forest Service who occupy the opposite fence urge that 

 much greater amounts of timber be forced on the market immediately and 

 that stumpage prices be reduced to bring this about. It is claimed that 

 it enough national forest timber is sold the country as a whole will get 

 cheaper lumber ; and that the government should sell, at any necessary 

 reduction in price, enough timber now to force down the market in the 

 principal consuming regions. 



Such a course^ is held by the Forest Service to he contrary in the first 

 place, to the interests of the public as the owners of the national forest 

 timber. The first series of sales working over the virgin stands should 

 yield under the present basis of appraisal not far from $2,000,000,000. 

 We do not believe that this should be reduced by the adoption of bargain- 

 da.v rates to one billion or three-fourths of a billion, a reduction tapping 

 the road and school funds of every national forest county as well as the 

 Federal Treasury. 



The service believes, in the second place, that such a policy would be 

 against the interests of the people as consumers of forest products. To our 

 thinking, two very definite things would happen. First established mills 

 would stop cutting their own timber wherever possible in order to cut 

 cheap public stumpage. This would not help the consumer. Little more 

 lumber would be produced and prices would not be affected. A far more 

 probable result would be the absorption of the difference in stumpage 

 prices in the profits of the operator. Secondly, the public reserve would 

 be rapidly dissipated at a tline when it is not needed and would do 

 neither the consumer nor the country at large any good. On the contrary, 

 whatever effort may be made to concentrate the control of standing timber 

 with a view to ultimate control of lumber production would be enor- 

 mously strengthened by such a rapid dissipation of the public supply 

 which ought in the long run to give the public its best check upon 

 monopoly. 



Under the present competitive conditions in the manufacture of lumber 

 and the constant tendency to overproduction no conceivable quantity of 

 public stumpage which could be sold would affect the general market. If 

 production is ultimately more closely controlled, and the concentration of 

 standing timber seems to point .in that direction, a large public supply 

 will be of inestimable value to the country at large in maintaining com- 

 petitive conditions in the industry. Wholly aside from the imprudence 

 of disposing of public property for less than it is actually worth, it would 

 be the height of folly for the people to throw away this future control 

 of the acute situation which the exhaustion of the virgin forests is bound 

 to bring about by attempting to force their stumpage upon the market 

 now at cut rates. 



We need the cooperation of your association, and particularly of its 

 affiliated organizations, in the compilation of lumber prices. 



A. S. Caldwell, president of the Mississippi Eiver Levee Asso- 

 ciation, spoke in opposition to the Newlands river bill now before 

 Congress. Mr. Caldwell represents a faction which favors the 

 control of the floods by means of adequate levees only. He said 

 that in all streams levees are essential and that the object of his 

 association is to create public sentiment to influence Congress to 

 follow the lines suggested by his organization. 



In commenting upon the Newlands bill Mr. Caldwell criticized 

 the idea of providing reservoirs, which he said are efficient on 

 small streams, but deficient on such large bodies of water as the 

 Mississippi river, as they must be close to the region benefited, 

 and as the areas required for the reservoirs and the cost of con- 

 structing them would be so enormous as to be prohibitory. He 

 said that a reservoir to have taken care of the excess water in 

 the recent flood would have had to be 700 square miles in sur- 

 face, an area almost as big as New Jersey. He said that the ex- 

 cess water that fell above Louisville alone in the recent flood on 

 the Ohio river, could have been held only by an excess reservoir 

 1,740 miles long, one mile wide, and twenty-five feet deep. 



The speaker quoted the Scientific American regarding the feasi- 

 bility of reforestation as a means of checking floods. He said 

 that the floods in many forested areas were much less in 1913 

 than in 1857, at which time the forests were practically untouched. 

 He said that in 1837 the water at Pittsburgh was five feet higher 

 that in 1913, and that in 1844 the Mississippi river at St. Louis 

 reached the highest level it has ever reached. 



The speaker said that, according to the Scientific American, 

 the flood of 1913 was caused by unusual rains and was not in any 



