628 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



timber, because the road can be made a 

 common carrier and many thousand tons 

 of freight now handled by slow and cumber- 

 some freight wagons could be hauled each 

 year on the new line; also large quantities 

 of hay, grain, and other supplies are used at 

 Fort Apache, an important military post 

 about twenty miles south of the tract. In 

 addition to this, some revenue should be 

 derived from passenger traffic, not only from 

 civilian travel but from the movement of 

 troops to and from Fort Apache, and there 

 should also be a good income from mail 

 contracts. 



Deposits of coal said to be of excellent 

 coking quality are within thirty miles of 

 the timber, and the development of these 

 deposits only awaits railroad transporta- 

 tion. 



In order to secure immediate develop- 

 ment of this timber resource and at the 

 same time to protect the purchasers of the 

 stumpage in their investment and give 

 them sufficient time to make the cutting, 

 the government has set a limit of ten years 

 from the completion of the logging plant 

 in which the whole 600,000,000 feet of lum- 

 ber must be harvested. Two years will be 

 allowed for the preliminary work, such as 

 building sawmills, quarters for the lumber 

 crews, logging railroads, and spurs. 



While the Navajo Development Company 

 makes the application for this timber, it 

 will be advertised in the open market for 

 120 days, and the timber will be sold to 

 the highest bidder in accordance with the 

 regulations prescribed for the sale. No 

 price will be considered less than $2.50 per 

 thousand board feet for the timber cut dur- 

 ing the first five years of the contracts and 

 $3 for that cut during the last five years. 

 During the first two years of the contracts, 

 which will be separate for the national for- 

 est timber, under jurisdiction of the Forest 

 Service of the Department of Agriculture, 

 and the Indian Reservation timber, under 

 the Indian OSice of the Department of the 

 Interior, the successful bidder will be re- 

 quired to cut 35,000,000 board feet under 

 each contract. Each year after this, how- 

 ever, he will be required to cut not less 

 than 25,000,000 board feet under each con- 

 tract. 



There are several special provisions of in- 

 terest which provide for full utilization of 

 all the available material: The sale in- 

 cludes two-thirds of the live timber and the 

 merchantable dead timber; no unnecessary 

 damage shall be done to the young growth 

 nor to trees left standing for seed; stumps 

 must be cut low and trees utilized well into 

 the tops; brush will be disposed of by the 

 purchaser; all felling and cutting into log 

 lengths will be done with a saw instead of 

 an ax. to avoid the waste in ax chips. Strict 



precautions will be observed for protection 

 against fire, and railroads and logging en- 

 gines will have to use oil or electricity. 

 The use of oil is thoroughly practicable, as 

 it can be obtained cheaply and conveniently. 

 The main line of the Santa Fe, only a few 

 miles away, uses this fuel, and it is used 

 also in lumbering operations on the neigh- 

 boring national forest, the Coconino. 



Altogether, this timber sale should prove 

 an attractive proposition, since the tract 

 contains what is probably the largest body 

 of good timber now remaining in the South- 

 west. It is not in rough country, but on an 

 extensive plateau where the ground is 

 either smooth and level or gently undulat- 

 ing. The region is well watered and pre- 

 sents almost ideal logging conditions. Not 

 only should it be attractive from the point 

 of view of the lumberman but from that of 

 persons who are interested in opening up 

 and developing a comparatively new region. 

 The country has needed only the railroad 

 facilities which will be offered by the road 

 from Holbrook south to make rapid strides. 

 Even at the present time tens of thousands 

 of cattle, sheep, and horses graze in the 

 region, yet all beef and mutton must be 

 driven on the hoof to Holbrook and wool 

 has to be freighted by wagon from distances 

 varying from 30 to 100 miles. In addition 

 to the timber directly involved in this sale, 

 other large bodies aggregating about 1,500,- 

 000,000 board feet will be made accessible 

 by the proposed railroad. 



District Forester Silcox at Missoula, Mon- 

 tana, has just sold a total of 125,000,000 feet 

 of fire-killed timber, presumably a part of 

 the timber killed in the great fires of 1910. 



The Forest Service has been making ener- 

 getic efforts to dispose of this fire-killed 

 timber before it should become a total loss, 

 and has made a number of sales but none 

 of equal magnitude with those now an- 

 nounced. The sales are of 50,000,000 feet to 

 the McGoldrick Lumber Company of Spok- 

 ane, and 75,000,000 feet to the Roselake 

 Lumber Company of Roselake, Idaho. 



Ordinarily such large sales are made from 

 Washington, with full reports on file, but 

 in this case special authority was given to 

 the district forester to close contracts at 

 once. There is still a great deal of fire- 

 killed timber in the northwest which is 

 for sale on very reasonable terms, and as 

 a result of field studies of its amount and 

 the natural conditions the Forest Service 

 is prepared to furnish full information to 

 prospective purchasers concerning the loca- 

 tion of bodies of timber and the logging 

 methods which will be necessary in each 

 case. 



