10 



National Resources Committee 



The Regional Forest Situation 



The four States i)f the Region have 93 niiHioii acres 

 of forest hind, or 37 percent of their hind area. The 

 percentage of land in forest m the several States is: 

 Montana, 22; Idaho, 42; Oregon, 46; Washington, 55. 

 The forest lands are heavily concentrated in western 

 Montana, northern Idaho, western Oregon, and western 

 Wasldngton ; about five-sixths of the area west of the 

 summit of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington 

 is forest land. In the respective States, the iDcrcentage 

 of the forest land privately owned is: Montana, 20; 

 Idaho, 20; Oregon, 41 ; and AVashington, 46. 



There are about 900 billion board feet (lumber tally) 

 of standing saw timber in the forests of the region. 

 This is 48 percent of all of the saw timber in the United 

 States and is 55 percent of the coimtry's softwood saw 

 timber. (One billion board feet is the ecjuivalent of 

 40,000 average freight carloads of lumber.) More than 

 two-thirds of the timber in the region is west of the 

 summit of the Cascades. The ciuantity of timber in 

 the region is distributed among the several States in the 

 indicated percentages: Montana, 6; Idaho, 11; Oregon, 

 48 ; and Washington, 35. 



Of the total quantity of timber in the region, 42 per- 

 cent is in the national forests, 6 percent is the revested 

 Federal timber in western Oregon, and 2 percent is 

 other Federal timber — a total of 50 percent Federal. 

 Five percent of the timber is owned by the States, 

 counties, and municipalities. Three percent is the prop- 

 erty of the Indians, but managed for them by the 

 Federal government. The remaining 42 percent of 

 the timber is ])rivately owned. The percentage of the 

 timber in private ownership in the several States is: 

 Montana, 26; Idaho, 28; Oregon, 44; and Wash- 

 ington, 48. 



Before the coming of the white man the ((uantity of 

 timber in the forests of the region was kept roughly 

 constant by great natural constructive and destructive 

 forces; the growth (which takes place each year in each 

 living tree) being offset by destructive agencies, the 

 chief of which were fire, insects, and diseases. Since 

 the white settlement of the Region, this balance has 

 been seriously distm-bed, especially in recent decades, 

 by increasing^ rapid cutting of timber followed by 

 partial but on the whole insnfficient reproduction. 



During tlie past 3 decades especially, increasing 

 human occupancy and use of the forests have gi-eatly 

 increased the number of fires, and the increasing areas 

 of cut-over land have created more hazardous condi- 

 tions. Fire protective organizations have been devel- 

 oped and greatly improved, but, in many parts of the 

 Region at least, these organizations are still insuffi- 

 ciently financed and manned to reduce average annual 

 fire losses to a reasonable fisriu-e. 



For the region as a whole, insects are a less serious 

 jjrobleni than fire, although in some localities — esjjc- 

 cially in eastern Oregon — insects do more damage than 

 fire. Much less progress has been made toward solu- 

 tion of the insect problem than of the fire problem. 



Tree chseases constitute a serious threat to the 

 forests. They are less spectacular but more insidious 

 than fire. The white pine blister i-ust for several years 

 has been so strongly estabhshed in northern Idaho 

 that it threatens destruction of such of the white pine 

 in that and adjoining States as has not yet been pro- 

 tected. It has recently become established in the 

 sugar pine and western white pine stands of southern 

 Oregon and is spreading southward into the extensive 

 sugar pine stands of California. This threat to all the 

 white pine and sugar pine stands of the Western States 

 is being met with energetic action which must be 

 vigorously continued because of the rapidity of the 

 spread of infection and the necessity of completing 

 the work of protection of the stands before the jiine 

 becomes generally infected. 



Other fungous diseases, by rotting the wood inside 

 standing trees, destroy annually substantial quantities 

 of forest material. This damage, mostly hidden until 

 individual trees are felled for utilization, is so difficult 

 to combat that little can be done, practically, in the 

 case of virgin timber. 



The early settlers cut a little timber for their simple 

 needs. But after 1849, the growing California and for- 

 eign markets absorbed more and more of the forest 

 products of the Region. Durmg the present century 

 the greatly reduced production of lumber in the Lake 

 States and the South, due to approaching exhaustion of 

 virgin timber supplies in those regions, has caused the 

 great lumber consuming regions of the country to rely 

 more and more heavily upon the Pacific Northwest 

 Region as the important source of supply. The com- 

 pletion of the Panama Canal has further accentuated 

 the demand upon the forests of this Region. In 1909 

 the Pacific Northwest supplied 15 percent of the total 

 national lumber production. By 1929 this figure had 

 risen to 36 percent, and in 1934 the trend was still up- 

 ward, placing the figure at 39 percent. 



It is estimated that the 1929 production of lumber 

 and other forest products required the removal of about 

 15.6 billion feet of saw timber from the regional forests. 

 During the depression production was greatly dimin- 

 ished, but vdtli the return of prosperity it is expected 

 that the annual cut will return to predepression pro- 

 portions. 



Based (1) on existing stands of old growth and second 

 growth timber, (2) on moderately good forest manage- 

 ment (substantially better than that at present), (3) 

 on expected growth, and (4) on estimated losses with 



