154 Proce:e:dings 01^ th^ 



of trees themselves a hundred years old, and over and 

 among all is a growth of salmon-berry, salal-berry, 

 and other shrubs and tall ferns, making an almost 

 impenetrable mass, so dense two miles is a good day's 

 travel, on courses, for a woodsman. 



These tracts, where the timber is large, have few 

 young trees, and the old giants are over-ripe. It is 

 doubtful if they produce seed, and doubtful if their 

 growth equals their decay on many townships. They 

 cannot be thinned, all must be cut ; any left, as are the 

 hemlock, and until recently the cedar, are broken by 

 the falling of their neighbors, or blown down when 

 their neighbors are gone. 



The mountain sides have deep canyons and the 

 foothills are steep, and jointly they are most of the 

 timber area of western Washington and Oregon. 

 Methods of forestry adapted to eastern timber areas 

 are useless here, as are eastern methods of logging. 



The first efforts to handle this timber were those 

 of building ''skid-roads" up the gulches, cutting the 

 timber into eastern lengths, 12 to 24 feet, and then 

 with six yoke of oxen the logs were hauled, one at a 

 time, to the water. In those days there was no de- 

 mand for cedar or hemlock, and both were left in the 

 woods. Neither offered the per cent, of clear the fir 

 and spruce offered, therefore why waste time on the 

 low grades ? The supply looked inexhaustible ; stand- 

 ing timber had little value; butt cuts of the hemlock 

 sometimes sunk ; customers wanted only fir and spruce ; 

 redwood furnished shingles; why then use low grades 

 or hemlock? 



On these old choppings all hemlock, cedar, low- 

 grade fir and low-grade spruce trees, all broken cuts, 

 all butts with center decay, all trees with ''conchs" — 

 indicating rot — all stubs, or dead trees, with loose bark. 



