FORESTS AND TIMBER IN MONTANA 



♦Montana's timber stand is estimated to aggregate 59,509 million feet, and the 

 current annual growth for all species on the productive commercial timber land is 

 roughly estimated at 790 million feet. The average annual lumber cut for the six year 

 period of 1916-1921 inclusive was 329,682,000 feet. The total annual cut for the state, 

 inclusive of lumber, round timbers for the mines, cordwood, hewn ties, posts, pilings, 

 shingles and lath, averages 600,000,000 feet or 190,000,000 feet less than the current 

 annual growth. 



The lumber cut of Montana in 1921 was 47.7 per cent less than the 1920 cut and 

 was the smallest in Montana since 1905. "Unsettled business conditions throughout the 

 country, high freight rates and the cessation of demand temporarily checked the natural 

 trend toward increased production in the state," reports the U. S. Forest Service. 



Approximately two-thirds of the state's timber resources are under the jurisdiction 

 of the federal government, while the state owns approximately four per cent, and private 

 interests about twenty-nine per cent of the timber resources. 



The estimated stand by ownership is as follows: 



National Forests 35,250 million feet 



National Parks 2,006 million feet 



Public Domain 27 million feet 



Indian Reservations 2,425 million feet 



Total Federal 39,708 million feet 



State 2,300 million feet 



Private 17,501 million feet 



Total 59,509 million feet 



Timber acreages are incomplete. The net area of national forests in Montana, 

 June 30, 1922 was 15,933,889 acres. The state owns 500,000 acres of timber land. 

 Approximately 1,000,000 acres of timber land are listed by assessors. 



The Forest Service estimates the stands of timber on the national forests by 

 species as follows: 



Species Million feet 



Lodg-epole pine 14,599 



Douglas fir 7,3 66 



Western larch 4,364 



Western Yellow pine 3,427 



Engelmann spruce 2,749 



Miscellaneous 1,188 



Western white pine 630 



White bark pine 416 



Alpine and white fir : 396 



Cedar 115 



Nine-tenths of the 1921 lumber cut was sawed from three species, western-pine, 

 larch and Douglas fir. Nearly one-half of the cut was western pine, two-fifths of it was 

 larch, and about one-fifth Douglas fir. Of the total cut of 213,857,000 feet, 77,065,000 

 feet were cut in Missoula county, 57,027,000 feet in Flathead, 45,406,000 in Lincoln, 

 16,459,000 feet in Ravalli, and 7,388,000 in Sanders. The only other counties in which 

 the cut was more than a million feet that year were Mineral, Gallatin and Granite. 

 Some lumber was cut in 1921 in 33 of the 54 counties of the state. That year 142 saw- 

 mills were active and 89 were idle. The forest service estimates that 40,240,000 feet of 

 the 1921 lumber cut was on national forests. The cut in 1921 on state lands is esti- 

 mated at 28.000,000 feet. Deducting these from the total cut, shows that 145,617,000 

 feet of lumber was cut that year from privately owned lands. 



NOTE: *Data furnished by the U. S. Forest Service. 



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