202 FOREST VALUATION 



The recent development of logging engineering as a profession 

 on the Pacific Coast is in response to a recognition by operators 

 of the possibility of greater efficiency and economy in trans- 

 portation. 



Extraordinary increases in cost, if general, must ultimately 

 be taken from the value of stumpage. In the same way, a gen- 

 eral reduction of costs, even if due solely to improved methods 

 and greater efficiency, will increase the value of stumpage. 



191. Local Factors : Future Transportation Facilities. 

 With increasing population, transportation facilities are certain 

 to improve. Tracts of timber of considerable extent and volume 

 will be certainly reached in time by the construction of railroads 

 or other special means of transportation. A far more serious 

 question arises as to the permanence of such facilities. If there 

 is not sufficient use for them to justify their continuous main- 

 tenance after the present merchantable stand is removed, they 

 will be abandoned. The rails and ties are removed, the flumes, 

 bridges, trestles and corduroy rot away, the grades become gul- 

 lied and the roads grow up to brush. To remove any timber 

 in the future these structures must be replaced. There must 

 be a sufficient stand of second growth not only to furnish the 

 material for reconstruction but to warrant the expense ( 98) . 

 The original stand of virgin timber may have been several hun- 

 dred years old, and far more valuable per thousand feet than 

 this second growth ( 184). There are many districts where a 

 second operation will be financially impossible, and timber 

 grown after logging will remain inaccessible unless a very con- 

 siderable increase occurs in the value of stumpage in general. 

 This condition applies to mountainous or non-agricultural re- 

 gions. Elsewhere, increasing population assures a future market 

 for all timber. 



A similar increase in average transportation costs per thousand 

 board feet occurs with the exhaustion of the more accessible 

 bodies of virgin timber. This tendency was for a long period 

 overcome by a corresponding expansion of the size of operations, 

 the amount of capital invested, and the quantity of timber 

 tributary to a single transportation system. The old days of 



