DEVELOPMENT OF PULPWOOD RESOURCES. 23 



financial ability of the applicants to operate according to the terms 

 of the contract. 



The Forest Service sells stumpage only. The purchaser of timber 

 has no cut-over land problem, for the Government retains title to 

 the land. Any legitimate use of the land incident to the develop- 

 ment of the project is allowed at a nominal consideration or free 

 of charge. 



AUTHORITY TO SELL TIMBER. 



The act of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 11), authorizes the sale of 

 timber on the National Forests. It also permits the export of any 

 forest product from Alaska (see any agricultural appropriation bill, 

 and the act of February 1, 1905 (33 Stat., 628), and this permission 

 includes, of course, the export of pulpwood and wood pulp. The 

 act of May 14, 1898 (30 Stat., 414), prohibiting the export of timber 

 from Alaska does not apply to National Forests. The fact that these 

 two sections appear in the codified laws of Alaska as sections 226 

 and 100, respectively, without any cross reference whatever, has 

 confused many in their search for legal authority for the exporta- 

 tion of timber, and on reading section 100 they have assumed such 

 exportation was illegal. 



Timber can not be legally acquired under the mining law, nor is 

 there any provision for purchases of timberland or concessions of 

 timber. The disposition of the timber is, as has been indicated, 

 on a competitive bidding basis by sealed bids. 



POLICY. 



The policy under which the Forest Service is now working, with 

 respect to the development of Alaskan timber resources for pulp- 

 wood, is as follows : 



(1) Firm contracts are offered for sufficient timber to supply a 

 proposed paper mill for as much as 30 years; and, if additional 

 timber is available, which may properly be reserved from other 

 present disposition, the Service offers as one of its contract stipula- 

 tions to reserve additional stumpage from sale up to a maximum of 

 15 years' supply pending the completion of the first contract, and 

 thereupon to appraise the reserved area and place it upon the market. 

 The maximum amount of timber the Forest Service is prepared to 

 award to one purchaser or group of interests is two billion feet board 

 measure or its equivalent in cubic feet. 



(2) The contracts provide for the reappraisal of stumpage prices 

 at intervals of five years after timber cutting begins, the first to be 

 made seven years after the contract is signed if the full two-year 

 period allowed for construction is used for that purpose; but, in 

 addition to fixing the price for the first five years, a scale of prices is 

 named which will in no event be exceeded in the reappraisal cover- 



