196 THE FOREST SERVICE AND THE NATIONAL FORESTS 



forest cover has caused serious fires, which, coupled with floods, has 

 inflicted great damage and property losses. The white pine blister 

 rust and the western pine bark beetles on both ponderosa and lodge- 

 pole pines have caused considerable losses 

 and required the services of large numbers 

 of men. 



Timber Growing and Cutting. One of 

 the most important phases of the National 

 Forest activities is the growing and cut- 

 ting of timber through a system of timber 

 sales. The best silvicultural and utiliza- 

 tion practices are usually followed. Nor- 

 mally about 1 billion board feet of timber 

 is cut each year, the peak being 1,600,000,- 

 000 in 1930. There were over 16,000 small 

 timber sales, each involving $500 or less, 

 and 129 sales of over $500. Much timber 

 is given away to local settlers. Through 

 the availability of the Civilian Conserva- 

 tion Corps, several hundred thousand acres 

 of crowded and stagnated young stands of 

 hardwoods and mixed conifers and hard- 

 woods in the East, southern Appalachians, 

 and Lake States have been thinned to in- 

 crease the rate of growth, and improve the 

 character of the stand. Much of the 

 young growing timber in the West, espe- 

 cially in South Dakota, Wyoming, and 

 Idaho, has been treated for cultural im- 

 provement thinnings. 



As the total stand of saw timber in our 

 National Forests is approximately 600 bil- 

 lion board feet, the cutting of approxi- 

 mately 1 or 2 billion feet is much less 

 than the annual growth. The principal 



timber sales are made in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, 

 Idaho, Colorado, and Alaska, mentioned in order of quantitative im- 

 portance. A vastly increased planting program has been inaugurated 

 particularly in the Lake States and the South. Recently, 70,000 acres 

 were planted in the National Forests in one year, which represents 

 the planting of approximately 70,000,000 trees. Large nurseries have 



FIG. 103. Chopping the un- 

 dercut on a tree marked for 

 cutting in a National Forest 

 area in Arizona. The open 

 character of the timber and 

 the generally level topog- 

 raphy make logging a rela- 

 tively simple problem in 

 most of the ponderosa pine 

 forests except in California 

 where the large size of the 

 trees and frequently rugged 

 topography make logging a 

 difficult problem. Selective 

 logging is widely practiced 

 on our National Forests. 

 Trees are generally marked 

 prior to felling. 



