202 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



*vgf* 



commonwealth sat by and did nothing either to enforce, 

 to make easy, or to help along the practice of forestry 

 on private lands, not even lending moral support to the 

 solution of the cut-over land problem. 



One of the large factors in retarding a conscious effort 

 to secure the reforestation of logged-off lands is the 

 question of the future use of these lands. If they are 

 useful for agriculture or pasturage, repeated fires are a 

 benefit. The early logging was at the lower elevations 

 on the bottoms and low, rolling hills, close to the settle- 

 mentsborderingPuget Sound 

 and the Columbia River and 

 its tributaries. The land was 

 all suitable for agriculture 

 and the lumberman had 

 hopes of disposing of it for 

 that purpose. As the logging 

 has progressed farther back 

 into the rougher mountain 

 country the hope that this 

 cut-over land might be sold 

 to settlers at a profitable fig- 

 ure has persisted. This ex- 

 pectation of selling all kinds 

 of logged-off land for farms 

 often stimulated by the un- 

 scrupulous land sharks has 

 postponed the initiation of 

 action looking toward the 

 practice of forestry on the 

 ultimate forest lands. As a 

 matter of fact, much of th: 

 land which is now beiiv;- 

 logged over is so rough or 

 rocky that it is perfectly ap- 

 parent that it has no agricu'- 

 tural possibilities and that it 

 ought to continue to produce 

 forest crops. Accurate fig- 

 ures as to the acreage logged 

 over in the Douglas fir re- 

 gion of the two States are 

 not available, but it is esti- 

 mated that there are about 

 2,500,000 acres in Washing- 

 ton and 1,200,000 acres in 

 Oregon cut over and not 

 cleared. Added to these are 

 many hundreds of thousands of acres of burns in a 

 denuded condition. Of this perhaps a half is farm land 

 either plow land, pasturage, or incidental wood lots ; the 

 remainder is best suited to forest growth. Besides the 

 cut-over land there remains in private ownership some 

 11,500,000 acres of virgin timberland (exclusive of burns 

 and sparsely timbered areas). A larger proportion of this 

 is ultimate forest land than of cut-over area. A conserva- 

 tive estimate of the ultimate forest land in the Douglas 

 fir region of Oregon and Washington in private owner- 





A HILLSIDE OF DOUGLAS FIR REPRODUCTION ON THE COLUM 

 BIA NATIONAL FOREST, WASHINGTON 



This was logged over in 1909 according to the dictates of good forestry, 

 the slash burned the same year and subsequent fires kept out. Most of 

 the reproduction came from seed stored in the ground; one of the seed 

 trees left as an added assurance of natural reforestation is shown in the 

 background. 



ship both cut-over, timbered and denuded burns is 

 10,250,000 acres. Added to this there is a great acreage 

 within the National Forests and a lesser amount in State 

 ownership and in Indian Reservation. The area of com- 

 mercial Douglas fir timberland in Federal ownership 

 within the National Forests of Oregon and Washington 

 is considered to be 5,000,000 acres, practically all of which 

 is ultimate forest land. Altogether, then, there are, in 

 round numbers, 16,000,000 acres of potentially productive 

 permanent timberland in Western Oregon and Wash- 

 ington. This acreage is capa- 

 ble of producing 9,000,000,- 

 000 board feet per year, as- 

 suming an average growth 

 rate of from 900 board feet 

 per acre per year on the best 

 sites to 450 board feet on the 

 poorer sites. This potential 

 capacity of these lands is in 

 excess of the present lumber 

 cut of the region. In other 

 words, the great lumber in- 

 dustry of the Pacific North- 

 west might continue on its 

 present basis if, and this is 

 the "if" which must be set- 

 tled by the people of the 

 Northwest and the country 

 right promptly, if intelligent 

 and strenuous action is taken 

 to effect the reforestation by 

 protection of all ultimate 

 forest lands as rapidly as 

 they are cut over. 



If present methods con- 

 tinue, by which cut-overland 

 is left at the mercy of fire 

 and no conscious effort made 

 to keep it productive, but a 

 fraction of the potential in- 

 crement will be realized. It 

 is now only chance areas 

 which become satisfactorily 

 reforested after logging, and 

 then it is due to the indomi- 

 table reproductive vigor of 

 Douglas fir and hemlock and 

 a fortunate escape from fire. 

 The rest are left by the logger thoroughly denuded, 

 scourged by repeated fires, and likely to remain unpro- 

 ductive for many years. 



The securing of reforestation after logging in the 

 Douglas fir region is not an insuperable task ; it is simple 

 in principle and requires no radical modification of 

 present logging practice. Nature will do it alone, if she 

 is given a chance and freedom from man-caused fires. 

 The practice of forestry is here 99 per cent fire protection. 

 As stated above, when the virgin forest is cut the seed is 



