FORESTRY IN THE DOUGLAS FIR REGION 



201 



investigations of the Wind River Forest Experiment 

 Station brought to light the fact that the seed from the 

 virgin forest lies dormant in the duff and humus of the 

 forest floor, perhaps for several years ; some of it escapes 

 damage by the slash fire after logging and germinates 

 the first spring thereafter. This accounts for the hill- 

 sides of magnificent reproduction on logged off lands and 

 burns, where there are no seed trees which might have 

 begotten such reproduction. Were these areas immune 

 from fire after the first slash burning there would be no 

 need for concern 

 as to the future 

 productivity of the 

 Douglas fir lands 

 of the Pacific 

 Northwest. A sec- 

 ond crop would be 

 assured. But these 

 logged off lands, 

 even though once 

 burned over by a 

 terrifically hot 

 broadcast slash 

 fire, are far from 

 immune from sub- 

 sequent fires. The 

 coarser debris is 

 not consumed by 

 the first fire, dry 

 fern and weeds 

 soon supply the 

 kindling, and only 

 a spark is neces- 

 sary to start a fire 

 which would run 

 over the area a sec- 

 ond or a third time. 

 Sometimes an area 

 burns over twice in 

 one season.- If all 

 the seed stored in 

 the ground germi- 

 nates after the first 

 fire, the second fire 

 kills the seedlings, 

 and if there is no 

 source of addi- 

 tional seed in the 

 near vicinity the chances for a second crop by natural 

 agencies are very small. Sometimes the second fire is 

 not severe and runs over the area in a crazy-quilt fashion, 

 leaving islands of reproduction here and there. The 

 irregular distribution of trees in many of the old forests 

 is due to this process of partial burning of the first 

 reproduction. 



This is the history to date of the logged-off lands of 

 the Douglas fir region : A slash fire immediately follow- 

 ing clean cutting ; a crop of seedlings coming from seed 



A TYPICAL CLOSE-UP VIEW OF A DOUGLAS FIR FOREST 



This is in Western Washington, where the mature trees average 4 feet in diameter and 225 feet 

 high. Such stands are now the scene of hundreds of logging operations, which are reducing to 

 stump land about 200,000 acres of private land annually, without making any conscious effort to 

 renew the forest growth. 



stored in the forest floor; and then a second and a third 

 and possibly even more fires which destroy what Nature 

 sowed and which leave the area a waste of fern, black- 

 berries, fireweed and brush, upon which Douglas fir will 

 become established only by the slow process of migra- 

 tion or by artificial means. Sometimes, by a turn of 

 fortune, an area escapes the second fire and the initial 

 crop of seedlings survives and in 20 or 25 years reaches 

 an age when, because of its dense shade, it is somewhat 

 resistant to fire and gives promise of reaching maturity. 



Sometimes when 

 the cutting has not 

 been absolutely 

 clean, defective cull 

 trees are left and 

 these act as seed 

 distributors and re- 

 stock the area in 

 the event of a sec- 

 ond fire. 



There are many 

 thousands of acres 

 of logged-off lands 

 in this Pacific 

 Northwest covered 

 by as pretty a 

 stand of Douglas 

 fir saplings as the 

 forester could wish 

 for. There are 

 more which are de- 

 void of adequate 

 tree growth of any 

 kind. The differ- 

 ence is due, on the 

 privately owned 

 lands, to chance, 

 not to any con- 

 scous effort to se- 

 cure a new crop. It 

 is not unnatural 

 that it should be 

 so. The supply of 

 virgin timber 

 seemed inexhausti- 

 ble and still seems 

 so to the majority 

 of people in Ore 

 gon and Washington, as it did in the Lake States and 

 the Southern pineries 50 years ago; the fire demon 

 seemed invincible, especially on the open cut-over lands. 

 The timber land owner's chief concern was to protect the 

 green timber; he had many troubles, and why should he 

 concern himself with providing for a second crop when 

 he had more timber than he could cut in 30 years, could 

 afford to pay taxes and interest on and protect from fire. 

 Meanwhile the public, which should be vitally interested 

 in the continued productivity of the forest lands of the 



