278 Forestry Quarterly. 



Generally speaking, the Mexican pine forests are what we 

 would call here still inaccessible or in other words, not yet ripe 

 for profitable logging under present market conditions. For an 

 immediate logging proposition I do not consider the requirements 

 of large Mexican timber holdings as a very splendid investment 

 on account of the great amount of money needed at the start for 

 railway construction to reach the timber, and on account of labor 

 conditions and present market prices of lumber, as long as Ameri- 

 can lumber can be sold as cheap as Mexican. But if stumpage 

 can be secured for 30 cents gold or less, and then be left alone for 

 10 or 15 years, a good investment may be made. Ground fires 

 are frequent but do not do much damage to old timber in those 

 altitudes ; the damage being done to the reproduction only, which 

 makes the investment on the old timber comparatively safe. 



These pine forests extend in larger bodies on high altitudes 

 through the southern part of Mexico and Central America. 

 Around the snow clad mountains of the Popocatepetl and Iztac- 

 cihuatl (18,500 ft. high) the timber line seems to go as high as 

 16,000 feet. When the writer passed these mountains there were 

 three different forest fires raging. In the interior of the Republic 

 of Honduras is another larger body of pines more or less of inter- 

 est for lumbermen. 



Outside the pine forests of the high altitudes in the interior, 

 which offer, a very pleasant temperate climate, are the tropical 

 hardwood forests with mahogany, Cedrela odorata and many other 

 valuable species, situated on the bottomlands and coast region. 

 There are also large white oak forests between Mexico City and 

 the Pacific coast which have been explored quite recently. 



In general, the exploitation of the Mexican pine forests is just 

 commencing. The market of these forests lies east of the Sierra 

 Madre, which is fortunately the more accessible side. The largest 

 lumber company is the Sierra Madre Timber & Land Co., which 

 has concessions of 2,300,000 acres east of Chihuahua, with a mill 

 of a daily capacity of 500,000 b. f., located 300 kilometers west of 

 Chihuahua at the terminal of the Chihuahua al Pacifico R. R. 

 The mill has never been operated to its full capacity but the out- 

 put has averaged about 100,000 b. f. per day. This company has 

 been newly organized this spring and is owned by Americans. 

 Aside from this large concern, there are a few other small lumber 

 companies. A very interesting logging operation is conducted 



