Logging the Pacific Slopes 



rough territory is almost universally 

 clear-cut and yarded with drum units 

 mounted on sleds or tractors. 



On national forests, various cutting 

 methods have been tested through 

 contractual requirements in timber 

 sales. Individual tree selection in the 

 ponderosa pine region, with varying 

 degrees of cutting to meet the silvi- 



701 



cultural requirements, has been for 

 some time a required practice. In the 

 west coast fir region, where silvicul- 

 tural and mechanical problems are 

 more complicated, more and more di- 

 versification is to be found. It is 

 easier to determine the undesirable 

 cutting practice than to determine the 

 most desirable one to avoid the waste 

 of timber that comes with clear cutting 

 large acreages and leaving unused 

 material on the ground and to avoid 

 the loss of production if the cut forest 

 is not restocked by planting. 



To clear-cut small spots on which 

 the trees are preponderantly over- 

 mature groups is considered good silvi- 

 culture for Douglas fir, which does not 

 tolerate shade and thrives best in open 

 areas. When the cut spots are small, 

 fires that start in the slash are more 

 likely to be controlled. Small cut-over 

 areas stand a good chance of being 

 reseeded naturally from the closely 

 adjacent timber. The Forest Service 

 requires cutting by this method or the 

 tree-selection method on its sales in 

 the west coast fir region, depending on 

 the silvicultural problems confronted. 

 Many sales of both types on national 

 forests have been processed recently. 



Great strides have been made in log- 

 ging equipment and cutting methods; 

 many problems remain unsolved. One 

 of the greatest is the salvage logging 

 of broken chunks, decaying wood, 

 small sizes, and stumps. Some progress 

 is being made in removing this type 

 of material. More progress will come 

 when industrial plants needing wood 

 waste become so numerous that the 

 supply of mill waste will not keep them 

 operating to capacity. Chemical re- 

 search has made possible the convert- 

 ing of practically all logging waste 



to valuable products. The gathering, 

 transporting, and processing of this 

 material into clean chips is yet the job 

 that commands the greatest effort. 

 Costs eventually must be lowered to 

 meet the competition of mill waste; 

 that will require ingenuity on the part 

 of the logger. Steps made in the ad- 

 vancement of transportation facilities 

 for logging the virgin timber will, of 

 course, greatly assist in harvesting the 

 so-called salvage material. The equip- 

 ment and knowledge required to get 

 the material to the road at reasonable 

 cost will follow. We can feel sure that 

 a new era is here and that much better 

 use of the wood on the land can soon 

 be realized. 



NEWELL L. WRIGHT grew up on a 

 small ranch in Northwestern Washing- 

 ton. He received a degree in logging 

 engineering at the University of Wash- 

 ton in 1913, and worked in private 

 industry as logging engineer and log- 

 ging camp superintendent for 20 years. 

 He joined the Forest Service as senior 

 logging engineer in 1934 and has con- 

 tinued in that capacity in the North 

 Pacific region. 



PERCENTAGE OF OPERATING ACREAGE IN 

 PROPERTIES AND WORKING CIRCLES 

 BEING CUT ON A SUSTAINED-YIELD 

 BASIS, UNITED STATES, 1945 



1 Cutting rated poor or destructive excluded as 

 property from the sustained-yield classification. 



