Cutting on National Forests of Pacific Coast. 383 



It is hardly necessary to state that as long as cutting is evi- 

 dently beneficial to the Forests, every effort should be made to 

 dispose of timber from each Forest to the amount of its possible 

 annual sustained yield. Both the Federal Government and the 

 States need the money which will be yielded by cutting. The 

 Federal Government is hampered in undertaking progressive con- 

 servation measures by lack of funds, and the States need all 

 revenues available for road and school purposes. In fact, this 

 need of revenue is almost a sufficient reason in itself for vigorous 

 encouragement of cutting on Forests, and it is fortunate indeed 

 that the National Forests are in such a condition as to make 

 cutting possible within a few years which will yield a heavy 

 revenue, not only without damage to the present or future of the 

 Forests, but with positive benefit, especially to the more distant 

 future. 



There has been and is a great deal of criticism of the Forest 

 Service because more cutting has not taken place on the National 

 Forest. While, I beheve, it is not a fact that any effort has been 

 made to retard development of the Forests, and while timber 

 sales have been made as fast as the demand for the timber at 

 reasonable prices has arisen, it is nevertheless true that the best 

 results cannot be obtained by this passive method of handling 

 timber sales. Active effort is needed to increase the number of 

 sales on nearly every Forest of the Pacific Slope. On the Sno- 

 qualmie Forest about one hundred million feet of timber is now 

 under sale contract, and it is expected that enough more can be 

 sold within the next year to bring the cut of the Forest up to its 

 safe limit. None should, or will be sold beyond this limit. 



The timber on the National Forests is so inaccessible as com- 

 pared with large areas of timber in private ownership, that there 

 is very little demand for it, and lack of cutting has been due to 

 this fact, although this has not been taken into consideration in 

 the criticisms of the Forest Service which have been made. It is 

 nevertheless true, that no one thing would have so favorable an 

 effect on local pubHc opinion in this region as increasing the cut 

 of the Forests to their safe cutting limit. This is true, because 

 it is of the greatest importance to the region that the income to 

 roads and schools should be increased, and that the enormous 

 revenue which would accrue to labor and capital through the 

 timber cutting should be made available. The National Forests 



