The Wind River Experimental Forest 



169 



The first important factor in any 

 reforestation job is the production of 

 high-quality nursery stock in the quan- 

 tity needed for the planting job. It is 

 like the foundation of a building. The 

 plantations and the planting job can 

 be no better than the nursery stock on 

 which they depend. 



FLOYD M. GOSSITT is a graduate in 

 forestry of the University of Idaho. 

 From 1921 to 1933, he was forest 

 ranger and junior forester in the North- 

 ern Rocky Mountain Region of the 

 Forest Service. He worked on the Prai- 

 rie States Forestry project from 1934 

 to 1936; since then he has been in 

 charge of planting and nurseries in the 

 Southern Region. 



G. A. RINDT is in charge of planting, 

 disease control, and timber-stand im- 



provement in the Division of Timber 

 Management in the North Pacific 

 Region of the Forest Service. His 

 assignments have included work on 

 the Manistee Purchase Unit, the 

 Emergency Rubber Project, and the 

 Nicolet National Forest. Mr. Rindt is 

 a graduate in forestry of Iowa State 

 College. 



HARRY A. GUNNING is the assistant 

 director of the United States National 

 Arboretum in Washington, D. C. From 

 1919 to 1935 he was in the Division of 

 Plant Exploration and Introduction of 

 the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils, 

 and Agricultural Engineering. From 

 1935 to 1948 he was chief of the Nur- 

 sery Division, Soil Conservation Serv- 

 ice. Mr. Gunning is a graduate in hor- 

 ticulture from Kansas State Agricul- 

 tural College. 



THE WIND RIVER EXPERIMENTAL FOREST 



LEO A. ISAAC, WILLIAM E. BULLARD 



An experimental forest is an outdoor 

 laboratory, an area set aside for re- 

 search in the reproduction, growing, 

 and harvesting of forest crops. It cov- 

 ers 40 acres, or 20,000 acres, enough 

 land so that one can conduct funda- 

 mental studies and extend the results 

 to a commercial or pilot-plant scale. 

 New findings and time-tested methods 

 are tried out side by side, and the re- 

 sults compared as the forest develops 

 and time passes. 



One of these outdoor workshops 

 the Wind River Experimental Forest 

 in the Douglas-fir region is in the 

 heart of the Cascade Mountains. It 

 forms part of the upper reaches of a 

 hanging valley that empties into the 

 Columbia Gorge near Carson, Wash. 



The Wind River locality is the 

 cradle of forest research in the north- 

 western part of the United States. 

 There, as early as 1910, some of the 

 first cutting was done on a national 

 forest. A year or two later the first 

 Forest Service nursery was established, 



the first arboretum started, and the 

 first natural area in the region was set 

 aside there in 1925 to maintain in 

 perpetuity virgin-forest conditions. 



Early work in forest research was 

 done in the nursery and on nearby 

 Columbia National Forest land. Then, 

 in 1932, some 10,000 acres surround- 

 ing this center was set aside as the 

 Wind River Experimental Forest. 



The tract is typical of a vast forested 

 area at the middle elevations in the 

 Cascade Mountains, where the soil and 

 topography are such that the area will 

 probably be kept forever in forest pro- 

 duction and not diverted for grazing 

 or other agricultural uses. It is a good 

 timber-growing site not the best, but 

 about equal to the average in the re- 

 gion. Physical features of the experi- 

 mental forest are similar to those of 

 the surrounding country. The under- 

 lying rocks are basalts, the peaks are 

 old lava vents, and some lava flows are 

 still exposed. The soils are mostly red- 

 brown shot loams, very porous, heavily 



