production of pulpwood and sawlogs. When so 
integrated it opens the way for more intensive for- 
estry than might otherwise be possible by providing 
substantial additional income. 
Timber Industries in General 
Handicapped by Waning Timber Supply 
The foregoing review of the principal timber 
industries points to timber shortage as a major 
handicap to sustained output. Other factors— 
especially skilled labor and equipment shortages 
—influence the situation currently, but raw material 
is basic and the major forest industries are finding 
the procurement of suitable stumpage more difficult 
and costly than in earlier years. 
Local shortages of timber suitable for the estab- 
lished industries are critical. They are not fully 
revealed by regional data on timber volume and 
growth. In many localities the timber industries 
have been based on certain favored species, making 
no use of, and often destroying, large volumes of 
intermingled less desirable species. Sometimes it 
has been possible to go back over the land to 
harvest the species formerly considered unmer- 
chantable, but industries that depend for profitable 
operation on superior species such as western white 
pine in the Northern Rocky Mountain region or 
sugar and ponderosa pine in California, must dis- 
count estimates of total timber volume to allow 
for the species that they cannot market to ad- 
vantage. 
Exploitation of favored species in the past aggra- 
vates the raw-material problem now. ‘The removal 
of the best trees of the choice species often leaves 
the land in possssion of a poor-quality stand domi- 
nated by low-value species. Such conditions are 
generally unfavorable for a new crop of the more 
valuable species. ‘Thus poor-quality hardwoods 
have taken over large expanses of eastern forests 
that formerly supported valuable mixed timber. 
And high-grading is being practiced also in the 
mixed conifer types of the West. 
The availability of raw materal for the timber 
industries is further limited by transportation fac- 
tors. Half of our saw timber is in the West, yet 
many of the established industries there will have 
to close because they can no longer get enough 
timber. New roads must be built into undeveloped 
country to make much of the timber available. 
Ability of established industries to get timber 
from new localities is sometimes limited by the 
inadequacy of the public highway system or restric- 
Forests and National Prosperity 
tions imposed upon highway use. The bulk of 
the timber now moves to the mills by motor truck. 
In many localities the public highway system will 
not stand such heavy traffic, or the grades and 
curves make log hauling impracticable. To over- 
come such limitations, some western timber oper- 
ators have constructed their own roads paralleling 
public highways. Where the highways must be 
used, license fees or laws regulating truck loads, 
speeds, etc., often varying from State to State, add 
to the cost of transporting both raw material and 
finished product. 
Railroad freight charges also have an influence 
on raw-material supply. In general, other things 
being equal, the farther the raw material must be 
hauled the less the manufacturer can pay for it 
at the loading point. Consequently the margin for 
stumpage goes down as shortage of nearby timber 
forces a manufacturer to go farther afield. This 
encourages “‘high-grading,”’ species discrimination, 
and other wasteful practices in woods operations 
which, as previously pointed out, adversely affect 
future timber supplies. Indirectly, freight charges 
in getting the manufactured product from mill to 
consuming markets also have a bearing on timber 
supply. While these tend to be passed on to the 
consumers, the more distant manufacturers must 
absorb freight differentials in order to. compete 
with those more favorably situated. This limits 
how far they can go and what they can pay for raw 
materials in the same manner as freight or other 
transportation charges in getting the raw material 
to the mill. 
Industries Not Geared to Permanent 
Timber Supply 
The impact of timber shortage on the forest 
industries has just been considered. A comple- 
mentary question is how the location and character 
of these industries have affected the timber re- 
source. 
Too much manufacturing capacity in certain 
localities has led to overcutting of tributary forests. 
There are numerous examples of this now in the 
Pacific Northwest. Grays Harbor, for example, 
had 35 active sawmills in 1941 capable of producing 
well over 1 billion board feet a year. The cut in 
1941 was 810 million board feet, of which 650 
million was Douglas-fir and redcedar. Yet the 
tributary forests could sustain a cut of only 206 
million board feet of these species. 
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