Forest Resources oj the Pacific Northwest 



61 



Mountains, in both Oregon and Washington, is very 

 heavily dependent on forestiy; in five western Wash- 

 ington counties and one western Oregon county more 

 than 40 percent of the gainfully employed males work 

 in forest industries. East of the Cascades, the im- 

 portant producing areas stand out clearh', the counties 

 most exclusively devoted to lumbering being Deschutes 

 in Oregon and Clearwater in Idaho. Deschutes and 

 Klamath are the two eastern Oregon counties most 

 largely dependent upon lumbering, while a group of 

 counties in northern Idaho, northeastern Washington 

 and northwestern Montana is very heavilj^ dependent 

 upon forest industries. The only counties of southern 

 Idaho in which lumbering is of large importance are 

 Gem, Valley, and Boise. 



There is an evident connection between the location 

 of forest industries and Regional population distribu- 

 tion. This is shown by a comparison between the map 

 showing the proportion of the gainfully employed 

 engaged in forest products' industries (fig. 1) and the 

 map showing the density of population by counties 

 (fig. 2). It indicates that there is a general tendency 

 for areas of dense population to fall in districts where 

 lumbering is the outstanding activity. The most 

 striking exceptions to this general rule are in southern 

 Idaho, in Montana, and in eastern Washington; areas 

 supporting considerable populations largely by agri- 

 culture or mining rather than lumbering. It is an 

 interesting fact that every city in the Pacific Northwest 

 with a population of over 20,000, with the exception of 

 Butte and Great Falls, Mont., Yakima, Wash., and 

 Boise, Idaho, is located in a region where lumbering is 

 the outstanding economic activity. 



T.4BLE 1. — Relative employmenl ' 6^ various forest products' 

 industries, Pacific Northwest Stales, 1930 



Forestry (including logging) 



Saw and planing mills 



Other wood working and furniture industry. 



Total, forest products' industries 



Idaho 



Number 



6,193 

 } 16,534 



Percent 



48.4 

 51.6 



Montana 



Number 



2,448 

 '2,287 



4,735 



Percent 



61.7 

 48.3 



100.0 



Forestry (including logging).. 



Saw and planing mills 



Other wood working and furniture 



industry 



Paper and allied indu-strie^ 



Total, forest products'industries. 



Oregon 



Num- 

 ber 



16, 557 

 23, (M8 



4,049 

 3, US 



46,769 



Per- 

 cent 



35.4 

 49.3 



8.6 

 6.7 



100.0 



Washington 



Num- 

 ber 



26,764 

 36,465 



6,553 

 6,5.59 



76,341 



Per- 

 cent 



35.0 

 47.8 



8.6 

 8.6 



100. 



Pacific 

 Northwest 



Num- 

 ber 



50,962 



■177,936 



9,674 



138, 572 



Per- 

 cent 



36. S 

 56.2 

 7.0 



100.0 



' Gaioful workers less unemployed. (Unemployed includes: Class A, persons out 

 of a job, able to work and looking for a Job; cla.^ B, iiersons having jobs, but on lay-off 

 without pay, excluding those sick or voluntarily idle.) 



' Saw and planing mills and other wood working and furniture combined. 



Source; Census of 1930, Unemployment, volume I. 



The amount of employment provided by different 

 forest product industries is shown in table I. In Idaho 

 and Montana approximately one man is engaged in 

 forestry and logging for each person employed in planing 

 mills or other woodworking factories. In Oregon and 

 Washington, on the other hand, while approximately 

 half those engaged in forest products' industries work in 

 saw and planing mills, only 35 percent of the total are 

 engaged in forestry and logging, and roughly 15 percent 

 of the gainful workers are employed in other wood- 

 working and furniture industries, and in the paper and 

 allied industries. The figures are very similar for 

 Oregon and Washington, except that the paperjndustry 

 is relatively less important in Oregon than in Wash- 

 ington. It is difficult to explain the difi'erences between 

 the pine and Douglas fir regions in these data which 

 seem to indicate that relatively fewer persons are en- 

 gaged in the woods than in the mills in the Douglas 

 fir region. 



Wages and Salaries Paid by 

 Forest Products Industries 



Another measure of the importance of forest indus- 

 tries is found in wages and salaries paid. Table II 

 compares the average number of employees and total 

 salaries and wages paid in forest industries in 1929 with 

 employees, wages and salaries in all other manufac- 

 turing industries. The figures given here for number of 

 employees difl^er from those given in table A (Appcntlix 

 2), because they record average employment through- 

 out the year rather than the number gainfully emploj'cd. 

 Furthermore, the classification of "manufacturing" is 

 more restricted than that of "manufacturing and 

 mechanical industries" used in table A. The most 

 important item included in the latter classification and 

 not in the former is the building industry. 



From table II it may be seen that forest industries 

 employ more than half of the persons engaged in 

 manufacture, and ])ay wages and salaries almost 

 exactly proportional to the numbers employed. In 

 other words, the manufacture of forest products is 

 more important in the Pacific Northwest than all 

 other manufacturing put together. 



The Importance of Forest Industries in the 

 External Trade of the Pacific Northwest 



The data presented above considerably understate 

 the importance of forests in the economy of the Pacific 

 Northwest. There can be no doubt that if the present 

 forests were to vanish or lose entirely their value, 

 more than 1 person in 10 in the Pacific Northwest 

 would be out of a job, and manufacturing employment 

 and pay rolls would shrink to much less than half 

 their present volume. This would result from the 



