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Yearbook, of Agriculture 1949 



regions stop on their way to the North- 

 west. The chambers of commerce and 

 other groups whose function is to serve 

 the guests are aware of the value of 

 the tourist business and the importance 

 of keeping the forest in good shape. 



On the forest are five camps for 

 church organizations, camps for Boy 

 Scouts and Girl Scouts, a YWGA camp, 

 and health camps. Two Government- 

 owned camps are used by 4-H Clubs 

 and other groups of young people. Sev- 

 eral colleges and universities conduct 

 summer field work in the forest, which 

 is an exceptionally good area for the 

 study of geology, mining, botany, for- 

 estry, ornithology, and other sciences. 

 Among the institutions that have done 

 such work are Dartmouth College, 

 Smith College, South Dakota School 

 of Mines, Spearfish State Teachers 

 College, and Princeton University. 



The streams are not large or numer- 

 ous and fishing is somewhat limited. 

 The forests have many mule deer and 

 whitetail deer, but only a few elk. 



Mining is important in the region. 

 The Homestake Mining Company's 

 mine at Lead, established in 1876, is 

 the largest producer of gold in the 

 Western Hemisphere. The industry 

 uses large volumes of timber products, 

 and its employees make full use of the 



recreational facilities of the forest. The 

 mining companies and their employees 

 are also willing fire fighters and pro- 

 tectors of the forest. 



Three hydroelectric power plants 

 use water that originates on the forest. 



The fiftieth anniversary of the estab- 

 lishment of the Black Hills National 

 Forest was observed on September 19, 

 1948, on the place and date of the first 

 timber sale. Much progress has been 

 made in forestry since that date, but 

 much remains to be done. 



ARTHUR F. C. HOFFMAN, a forester, 

 joined the Forest Service in 1910 as 

 field assistant on the White River Na- 

 tional Forest in Colorado. Beginning 

 in 1917, he was successively supervisor 

 of the San Juan, Montezuma, and Rio 

 Grande National Forests, all in Colo- 

 rado, and supervisor of the Black Hills 

 National Forest, with headquarters at 

 Deadwood, S. Dak. He retired from 

 the Forest Service in 1948. 



THEODORE KRUEGER is staff assistant 

 in timber management in the office of 

 the regional forester in Denver. He was 

 supervisor of the Black Hills National 

 Forest from 1930 to 1938, when much 

 of the work of improving the timber by 

 thinning and opening the stands and 

 building access roads was done. 



TAMING A WILD FOREST 



JOHN R. BRUCKART 



The Douglas-fir region in the west- 

 ern part of Oregon and Washington 

 covers some 55,000 square miles. 

 Five-sixths of it is forest land and one- 

 sixth is farm land. On the forest land 

 stands one-third of the saw timber 

 remaining in the United States. Two- 

 fifths of that saw timber is in the 

 national forests, which make up 16,000 

 square miles of the most isolated forest 

 land in western Oregon and Washing- 

 ton. The saw timber is mainly Douglas- 

 fir, with some hemlock, cedar, and 

 true firs. 



The Willamette National Forest, in 

 west-central Oregon, is one of these 

 Douglas-fir forests. Forest manage- 

 ment on the Willamette has several 

 unique aspects, but otherwise it typi- 

 fies forest management on the other 

 national forests of the Douglas-fir 

 region. 



In 1893, when President Grover 

 Cleveland established the 4,883,000- 

 acre Cascade Range Forest Reserve, 

 he included within its boundaries the 

 1,819,483 acres that are now the Wil- 

 lamette National Forest. The forest was 



