22 MISCELLANEOUS CIRCULAR NO. 61 



the largest of all the Forest Service nurseries, produces about 

 3,000,000 plants a year, the greater part of which are used in Idaho. 



INVESTIGATIVE WORK 



Supplementing its direct administration of the national forests, 

 the Forest Service conducts investigations on the growth and man- 

 agement of the forests and on the utilization of wood. The aim of 

 the first is to determine how the greatest production of the most 

 valuable timber can be obtained on all forest lands. That of the 

 second is to make possible the complete and most economic utiliza- 

 tion of all forest products. 



In order to carry out growth and management investigations 

 effectively, a number of forest experiment stations have been 

 established in various parts of the country. The work for the 

 greater part of north Idaho is covered by the Priest River Ex- 

 periment Station, founded in 1912 and now known as the Northern 

 Rocky Mountain Experiment Station. Although its headquarters 

 are at Missoula, Mont., the field station for experiments in the 

 western white pine type is located 15 miles north of the town of 

 Priest River, Idaho. Here some 4,000 acres of adjacent mountain 

 land have been set aside as an experimental forest. On this tract 

 are being worked out experimentally the most suitable methods of 

 cutting and brush disposal and the systems of thinning to be used 

 for the large-scale timber operations in the national forests of that 

 section. In addition, annual cutting, on the basis of sustained yield, 

 is being conducted with a view to developing this tract as a demon- 

 stration forest to illustrate the methods of intensive timber grow- 

 ing and harvesting on small tracts. The Northern Rocky Mountain 

 Experiment Station, with its small staff of trained foresters, is now 

 the center of numerous management investigations, the results of 

 which are applied on the national forests and are made available 

 to private timber owners for use on their lands. 



The forest products investigations of the Forest Service are con- 

 ducted by the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wis., and 

 by the forest products offices in the western districts. The products 

 office at Missoula, Mont., carries on studies in north Idaho in regard 

 to logging, milling, kiln drying, air seasoning, and wood preserva- 

 tion. 



THE KANIKSU NATIONAL FOREST 



Only 186,986 acres of the Kaniksu National Forest lies in Idaho. 

 The rest is in the State of Washington and includes most of the 

 timbered country lying between the Idaho boundary and the Clark 

 Fork of the Columbia. The net area of the forest in both States is 

 444,593 acres. 



In spite of its relatively small size, it is important as a timber- 

 producing forest. There is now more than 2 billion board feet of 

 merchantable timber on the whole area, a large percentage of it 

 valuable western white pine and cedar. For the past five years the 

 annual cut has been 20 million board feet, which could be increased 

 to 31 million board feet without exceeding the amount grown each 

 year. 



