TIMBER SALES WEST OF THE CASCADE 

 MOUNTAINS IN DISTRICT 6 



E. E. HARPHAM, '14, Sealer, Olympic National Forest. 



THE FOREST SERVICE in the United States has probably developed 

 faster than a-ny other Government institution. The reason for this 

 has been in part due to public necessity, but mainly to the enthu- 

 siasm and perseverance of a few men who were far-sighted enough 

 to see the country's need and to act at the psychological moment. When 

 vast areas of National Forest land were set aside, much land undesirable 

 for public use was included, but gradually this land was eliminated until 

 now, with few exceptions, the National Forests are concise units to be 

 administered under Forest management. At first all the Forests were ad- 

 ministered from Washington, D. C., und^r the Forester, but owing to fast 

 increasing business and undesirable results obtained from such a remote 

 headquarters, the National Forests were segregated into districts. Each 

 district, of which there are seven, is in charge of a District Forester and 

 his assistants. The Assistant District Foresters each have charge of sep- 

 arate office divisions, the chief offices being Operation, Silviculture, Graz- 

 ing, Lands and Products. 



Under the office of Silviculture in natural sequence comes the cruising 

 or timber survey work, logging engineering, or the department which deals 

 with the investigation, appraisement of timber, and moulding of the con- 

 tracts under which the Government timber is removed, and last the super- 

 vision of the sales and the scaling of the timber removed. Besides this 

 regular work under Silviculture comes various investigative and technical 

 work, which may have the co-operation of other offices. 



In the following paragraphs, it is the purpose to deal mainly with 

 the scaling and supervision of timber sale work as usually found west of 

 the Cascades in District 6, which includes Oregon, Washington and Alaska. 



Scaling in the above region is done with the Scribner Decimal C rule. 

 This rule drops the last numeral of the actual scale given by the Scribner 

 rule and rounds off to the nearest ten. This simplifies the registering of 

 the scale and reports, yet the results are practically the same. 



Scaling logs to a great many may seem a matter of using the scale 

 stick correctly and entering the numbers properly in the scale book. While 

 these are necessary, the big idea in scaling is knowing defects, symptoms 

 of defects, what per cent should be deducted, and into what sort of material 

 the log can be manufactured. The last knowledge is essential in deter- 

 mining grades, and to be a good sealer a man must also have a pretty good 

 knowledge of lumber grades. The sealer should, upon looking at a log, 

 be able to form a mental picture of how that log is going to open up in 

 the mill and what the mill can get out of it. 



Instructions are given in the contract as to what per cent of the log 

 of a certain species must be sound before it is merchantable, but it is up 

 to the sealer to determine which logs are merchantable and which are culls. 

 To be able to judge correctly the sealer must study his logs, not only logs 

 generally, but logs in the particular locality he is concerned- with. The 

 distance of only a few miles may make a great change in the general char- 

 acter of the timber; i. e., on the low lands of gentle slopes we may find a 

 heavy stand of old growth Douglas fir affected with ground rot, worms, 

 conk, and numerous pitch rings and seams, while a few miles away on a 

 little different soil and exposure, we may find a hard, slow growing Douglas 

 fir very little affected by defects. 



