WESTERN YELLOW PINE IN OBEGON. 41 



FOREST MANAGEMENT OF PRIVATE LANDS. 



At the present time yellow-pine stands on privately owned lands in 

 Oregon are usually logged with no thought of securing a second crop 

 of timber on the land cut over. All the merchantable timber is cut, 

 the brush is allowed to lie where it falls, and the area is given no pro- 

 tection from fire. As a residt, fire usually gets into these slashings 

 and consumes many of the seedlings and saplings which were on the 

 ground as "advance reproduction" before the cutting. There being 

 no seed trees, the area does not reforest, but remams unstocked, or 

 inadequately stocked, practically an unproductive waste of idle land. 

 Such land is usually retained by the owner because it yields a rental 

 for grazing purposes, which about equals the taxes upon it. 



A part of the yellow-pine land which has been cut over already is 

 adapted to agriculture, and therefore it has quite naturally been an 

 object of the owner to remove the timber in such a way as to anni- 

 hilate the forest. But the majority of the yellow-pine land in the 

 State is absolute forest land; i. e., it is too dry, or too rocky, or too 

 steep, or at too high an altitude for agriculture and is land which 

 serves its greatest usefulness in the production of forest crops. Where 

 such absolute forest land has become reforested after destructive lum- 

 bering, it has been by chance rather than by the intent of the operator. 



It has been necessary up to the present time, because of economic 

 conditions, that the logging should be of a destructive nature. How- 

 ever, with the rapidly increasing value of stumpage the probability 

 of reform in timberland taxation, the greater security against forest 

 fires, and the increased stabihty and confidence in timberland invest- 

 ment, it can be said confidently that the time is here when the yellow- 

 pine timber operator in Oregon can afford to do something toward 

 conducting his logging operations and handhng his cut-over lands so 

 that they wiQ remain productive of forest crops. The Government 

 can afford to leave standing from 10 to 30 per cent of an uneven-aged 

 forest as the basis of a second cut, and allow it to grow for 50 or 60 

 years, but the individual owner can not afford to tie up an investment 

 in slow-growing timber for this length of time unless a speculative 

 rise in the value of the reserve stumpage be counted upon. In short, 

 the individual owner must take off the tract all the timber that he can 

 market at a profit in order to defray his logging and fixed charges and 

 to get back his invested capital; but even if he must cut off of the tract 

 aU the merchantable trees, and can not foUow the method practicable 

 on public lands, there are several measures which he can adopt to 

 promote the growtli of future crops of timber and to make the tract 

 more valuable. The raising of such a second crop is in no wise incom- 

 patible with tlie use of tlie land for grazing. 



1 . He can protect the virgin woods from fire. This is being done 

 with fair success now on many private holdings in the State, and all 

 the indications are that it wiU be universal and effective throughout 

 the yellow-pine region of Oregon before many years. 



