A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1443 



especially careful handling of grazing with respect to seasonal use 

 and number of stock, both for a few years before and a few years 

 after cutting. 



COSTS 



Some lumber companies are already practicing the above measures 

 practically as recommended, as a matter of good business. By so 

 doing they have greatly decreased their fire losses, and added to the 

 salability of their cut-over land. One company in central Oregon, 

 for example, followed the method of slash disposal outlined; in 6 

 years it has had only 60 fires in an area eventually totaling 50,000 

 acres, and has confined these to 129 acres. 



The cost of the measures, in excess of ordinary present practice, 

 which gives little thought to leaving the land productive, or to 

 increased returns from selective logging, is estimated to be as follows: 



Sound economic and silvicultural cutting will be no more costly 

 in the long run on a sustained-yield basis than the present heavy 

 cutting and liquidation program. Trees that may have to be left 

 especially for seed bearing constitute an investment recoverable in 

 later cuttings of about $2.50 an acre. 



Regulation of logging to prevent needless destruction need cost no 

 appreciable sum if earnestly undertaken. A rare exception might 

 be with high-power logging in heavy stands, where the cost would 

 rise toward 10 cents a thousand board feet cut, or about $1.50 an acre. 



Partial slash disposal will cost about 10 to 15 cents a thousand 

 board feet, or 60 cents to $1.50 an acre above present commercial 

 expenditures. 



Additional intensive protection following logging may cost as 

 much as $1.50 an acre, spread over a period of about 12 years. 



Regulation of grazing involves no appreciable cost chargeable to 

 stopping devastation. 



The total cost will range from $3 to $6 an acre in different parts of 

 the wide region where the ponderosa pine type occurs. All the 

 maximum costs given under each item will not be necessary under 

 any one set of conditions, but the items for slash disposal and special 

 fire protection must be met throughout the type. As in the types 

 previously discussed, savings resulting from the prescribed measures 

 frequently compensate for their cost. 



OTHER WESTERN TYPES 



The redwood type, largely because of the tremendous capacity of 

 redwood to reproduce from sprouts, is very rarely devastated. The 

 lodgepole-pine type owes its escape from devastation by anything 

 short of repeated severe burning to its abundant seed production, 

 and to the pine's peculiar habit of retaining the seed on the tree for 

 many years. A single fire in a cone-bearing stand may kill all the 

 trees, but causes the cones to open and shower the soil with seed. 

 The spruce-fir type may suffer devastation by cutting or fires, and 

 particularly by a combination of them, but so little of either this or 

 the lodgepole-pine type are in private ownership, and therefore subject 

 to unregulated cutting and slash fires, that discussion of them is 

 unnecessary here. 



