FLYING ON WINGS OF SPRUCE 



139 



specification spruce per month, a well known forest en- 

 gineer recently measured up a felled spruce in Clallam 

 County, Washington, which was 90 inches in diameter 

 on the stump and scaled 35,000 feet of merchantable logs. 

 This tree was felled because its external appearance was 

 promising, but the net result from the labor involved was 

 the discovery after the lower half had been bucked up 



only about one and a half airplanes, and this was a 

 veritable giant, hundreds of years old and nearly eight 

 feet across on the stump. Part of this lumber, after the 

 labor and care in cutting and selecting, is taken to the 

 new remanufacturing or "cut-up" plant at Vancouver, 

 Washington, which has facilities for converting 350,000 

 feet a day into the finished aircraft stock. 



Photograph by courtesy of James D. Lacey & Company. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA SPRUCE FOREST 



A dense stand of sitka spruce in the vicinity of Nimpkish Lake, Rupert District, British Columbia. Some of the difficulties of logging such tim- 

 ber are apparent from the picture, both the size and location of the trees requiring heavy equipment and railroad transportation. J he man at 

 the base of the tree on the right-hand side indicates the large size of the trees. 



into logs, that it would not meet the government speci- 

 fications. The only thing the matter was a slightly spiral 

 grain, with minor irregularities. It would help greatly 

 if the authorities knew a little more about lumber, and 

 did not demand wood of a character which does not 

 grow, even in the greatest forests and the most perfect 

 trees. They can never make wood, and should remember 

 that it is a product which must be selected from Nature's 

 manufacturing plant. 



On the operation just referred to, only about one 

 tree out of five looks sufficiently promising to justify 

 felling, and out of about one millon feet cut the total 

 amount of airplane stock accepted by the government 

 inspector was about 120,000 feet. This amounts to 12 

 per cent of the trees felled, but less than 3 per cent of 

 the spruce on the area cut over. One tree such as that 

 measured, if accepted would produce enough spruce for 



The present call is for ten million feet of aircraft 

 spruce per month. This requires cutting one hundred 

 million feet of spruce logs. Since the spruce cannot 

 economically be cut without the associated species, this 

 actually calls for an output of from four hundred mil- 

 lion to one billion feet of logs a month, depending on 

 whether the spruce averages 25 per cent or 10 per cent 

 of the stand. It is not exactly a job for amateurs. 



Co-ordination of effort, and concentration of action, 

 as far as the lumbermen are concerned, assures the nec- 

 essary spruce output for the aircraft program of this 

 country and our Allies. Special mills, extra logging 

 facilities, riven stock from selected trees, remanufactur- 

 ing plants and other emergency measures are increasing 

 the spruce production. The forests of America are 

 making good. The wings of spruce are being fabricated, 

 and, if it does not come sooner by other means, may they 

 surely prove the wings of victory. 



