34 8 



Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 



ganisms enter easily. Abert squirrels 

 and porcupines girdle the limbs and 

 tops of trees, especially those of sapling 

 and pole size. The girdled trees become 

 deformed, and rot enters the wounds. 



Ponderosa pine is a light-loving tree. 

 It reproduces and grows best with some 

 overhead and side light. It seldom re- 

 produces in full shade. Because of the 

 low annual precipitation, it needs 

 plenty of space to reach its largest 

 growth. At the same time, a dense 

 stand is desirable, at least through the 

 sapling and pole stage, in order to keep 

 the lower limbs small and obtain natu- 

 ral pruning on the main bole. 



The spring period in the Southwest 

 is unusually dry and windy. Summer 

 rains are the rule, but often are no 

 more than showers. A combination of 

 a good seed crop and early and heavy 

 summer rains is needed to insure repro- 

 duction of ponderosa pine. Seldom 

 does the combination occur. In 1918, 

 the seed crop was heavy, the following 

 spring was favorable for germination 

 and establishment, and the summers 

 of 1919 and 1920 were above average 

 for continued seedling growth. As a re- 

 sult, large areas of reproduction and 

 saplings are now common in most of 

 the Southwest. Since then, only rela- 

 tively few seedlings have become estab- 

 lished each year. 



HISTORY does not record how soon 

 the Spanish erected the first sawmill in 

 New Mexico after Onate led the first 

 settlers into the Valley of the Rio 

 Grande del Norte in 1598. One of the 

 first sawmills in northern Arizona was 

 brought overland from the Salt Lake 

 region by the Latter Day Saints and 

 erected south of Flagstaff at Sawmill 

 Springs in 1878. 



Large-scale lumbering operations 

 began with the construction of the first 

 railroad (now the Atchison, Topeka & 

 Santa Fe) through the timbered parts 

 of the Southwest. Between 1878 and 

 1881, the forests near Las Vegas, Pecos, 

 and Santa Fe, in New Mexico, were 

 heavily cut for ties and construction 

 material. In the 1880's the stands on 



the Colorado Plateau near Flagstaff 

 and Williams, in Arizona, were exten- 

 sively cut. Since then, the lumber in- 

 dustry has thrived and spread. 



Early cutting of ponderosa pine was 

 strictly on a basis of cut and use what 

 you can. The usable trees in the most 

 available areas were cut; the rest were 

 usually burned, with no thought to con- 

 servation or forestry. Some of the scars 

 are still noticeable, but most of the 

 heavily cut areas are now partly clothed 

 with forest growth, and many areas 

 have fine stands of young ponderosa. 



The largest lumbering operations 

 are in the vast ponderosa pine stand 

 on the Colorado Plateau, which ex- 

 tends unbroken from the Gila Wilder- 

 ness Area in New Mexico almost 300 

 miles northwest toward the Grand 

 Canyon. 



A typical operation is the one that is 

 centered at Flagstaff, in the heart of 

 the Coconino National Forest. During 

 the past 70 years the local mills have 

 cut more than a billion board feet 

 from 350,000 acres. The two large 

 mills and several saw mills can con- 

 tinue to cut about 60 million board 

 feet a year of national forest timber 

 on a sustained basis. More than 40 

 million board feet of sawlogs a year 

 are brought in 34 miles by a logging 

 railroad from the virgin stands of pon- 

 derosa pine south of Flagstaff. Large 

 trucks deliver logs to the railhead 

 from as far away as the Mogollon Rim. 

 Sawlogs cut near the established mills 

 are trucked directly to the mills. 



The lumber industry has a capital 

 investment of about 3 million dollars 

 in sawmills, box factories, cut-up 

 plants, and power plants in the Flag- 

 staff community. The industry depends 

 almost wholly on timber from the na- 

 tional forest. It provides employment 

 for about 750 persons. Wages paid 

 amount to 1% million dollars a year. 

 The Flagstaff community depends to a 

 large extent on the maintenance of a 

 stable forest-products industry. 



North of Flagstaff and across the 

 Grand Canyon is a unique island of 

 commercial ponderosa pine timber 



