FOREST REGULATION 487 



hand, but what remains available is becoming more and more 

 inaccessible. 



Along the Coeur d'Alene River proper the principal industry is farm- 

 ing, with lumbering a close second. Along the South Fork mining is by 

 far the dominating activity. It is here that the famous silver-lead 

 mines of Northern Idaho are located. 



Along the North Fork are numerous settlers bunched here and there, 

 who in the past have been engaged principally in lumbering, but who 

 are now gradually more and more active in farming lines, though 

 lumbering is still one of their principal activities during certain seasons 

 of the year. 



Roughly, the Coeur d'Alene Forest contains about 800,000 acres, of 

 which approximately 130,000 acres are alienated and about 85,000 

 acres covered with burns not reproducing, or other non-productive 

 land, or with protective forest. The 585,000 acres of productive forest 

 land have a fairly equal distribution of age classes. Such big gaps as 

 do occur are about equally distributed over the forest, and in view of 

 the character of the timber stands can be readily taken care of. 



Both the North Fork and the Little North Fork Rivers, on which 

 the principal bodies of timber lie, are readily drivable. Many of their 

 principal tributaries are also of such character and so located that from 

 this point of view the forest is relatively very accessible. Development 

 for mining purposes has resulted in the construction of railroads par- 

 alleling the southern side of the forest, and also up the North Fork of 

 the Coeur d'Alene River for a distance of about one-third of its driv- 

 able length. Either trails or roads make it possible, within reasonably 

 economical costs, to reach any portion of the forest, and these are 

 being gradually extended. 



The principal timber species on the Coeur d'Alene Forest is Western 

 white pine, for which normally there is practically an unlimited demand. 



There are at hand, therefore, the various elements making up the 

 factors to be considered for a workable plan for regulation : a useable 

 product in demand, accessible to market; an industry developed for 

 handling the raw material ; and manufactories for producing the fin- 

 ished product out of this raw material. But most important of all. 

 these circumstances brought about the condition that the demand for 

 cutting and for the timber itself was so closely approaching the roughly 

 estimated sustained yield of the unit that it became immediately neces- 

 sary to build up a v.orking and cutting plan, at least a preliminary one 



