380 Forestry Quarterly. 



fited by any system of storing up old, decadent, virgin stands of 

 timber. It is a well known fact that from 75% to 90% of the 

 area of the forests of the Pacific Slope bear stands of this 

 nature. 



If we assume that whenever cutting does begin on a National 

 Forest bearing a stand of this nature, it will be on a sustained 

 annual yield basis, it seems self evident that if we are to use a 

 rotation of, for example, 100 years, and are going to have an 

 approximately sustained annual yield through the first rotation 

 under management, only approximately one one-hundredth of 

 the area may be cut over each year, whether cutting to the limit 

 of the Forest begins now or twenty or thirty years hence. More- 

 over, if cutting to the limit of the Forest does begin now, it is 

 entirely evident that we will be cutting over about one one- 

 hundredth of the area each year after 20 or 30 years just the 

 same as if no cutting had taken place in the meantime, and con- 

 sequently, that the yield from the Forest will be just as large 

 then if we cut to the limit of the Forest in the meantime as it 

 will if no cutting takes place. It is, therefore, almost an axiom 

 that if we proceed on the assumption that the Forest will always 

 be worked on a sustained annual yield basis, that we cannot cut 

 any more timber from the Forest 30 years hence if cutting is 

 withheld in the meantime than we can if we have been cutting 

 to the limit of the Forest, and consequently that all the volume 

 production which may be secured in the next 30 years by cutting 

 on a sustained annual yield basis will be irrevocably lost if cutting 

 is withheld. This is true, because in the recadent stands now 

 existing no growth is taking place, and in many cases a decrease 

 in the volume of the stand is occurring on account of the dropping 

 out of the Douglas fir in stands which have reached the maximum 

 age for Douglas fir, and its replacement by hemlock stands, which 

 never contain as large a volume per acre as do thirty stands of 

 Douglas fir. The conclusion is inescapable, that if we are to 

 have regulation of the cut on a sustained annual yield basis when 

 cutting does begin on any National Forest in this region, the im- 

 mediate future cannot benefit in any degree from withholding 

 present cutting from the Forest. 



For example, on the Snoqualmie Forest it is calculated that 

 one hundred million feet a year can be removed annually for- 

 ever. We can begin removing this one hundred million feet a 



