owned lands other uses will be incidental since these 
lands are for the most part more valuable for timber 
production than are the public lands. Of the 
commercial forest land in public ownership, 696,000 
acres generally less suitable for timber production 
has been set aside for recreation and city water 
supply protection exclusively. 
Production of Commodities Other Than Timber 
Forest products other than timber, from which 
considerable income is obtained in this region, in- 
clude tanbark, 
swordferns, berries, huckleberry greens, pitch, and 
Christmas trees, cascara_ bark, 
Oregon-grape root. 
The most important of these is the bark of the 
cascara buckthorn (Rahmnus purshiana), valuable for 
The gathering of the bark 
is a seasonal occupation pursued largely by local 
its medicinal properties. 
residents. During the depression this employment 
has been an important source of income to many 
people. The price, forced down by a glutted 
market, has gone up again as unemployment has 
decreased—from 114 cents a pound in 1933 to a 
high of 9 cents a pound in 1936. Despite predic- 
tions that the supply of cascara bark would soon be 
exhausted, it is apparently as large as ever. The 
dealers state that when the price is around 6 to 8 
cents a pound the normal peel is 2,000 tons. The 
demand is comparatively inelastic, and excess pro- 
duction in 1 year results in a lower price and a 
smaller peel the next year. 
The popularity of Douglas-fir Christmas trees in 
other parts of the country has resulted in an enor- 
mous Increase in the annual shipments. In 1936, 
it is estimated, about 4,000,000 trees were shipped 
by rail, truck, and vessel to all sections of the 
country except the Rocky Mountain and New 
England States. 
California; other principal destinations were Texas, 
Kansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Florida, and Okla- 
homa. 
The majority were consigned to 
A small number were shipped to Hawaii 
and the Philippine Islands. A large part of the 
delivered price goes for freight, but the local 
revenue, including stumpage, labor, etc., undoubt- 
edly totals at least a million dollars annually. Four 
counties in western Washington, Mason, Kitsap, 
Thurston, and Pierce, produce the large majority 
of the annual cut, and in 1936 Mason County alone 
W® 
produced about 25 percent of the regional total. 
The low-site gravelly soils in this section grow a 
bushy tree with closely spaced whorls of branches 
that sells most readily. 
On privately owned cut-over land nearly all the 
young trees are cut for Christmas sale and no 
attempt is made to manage the land for future 
crops. Where the land is insufficiently stocked to 
begin with, as is often the case, the future sawlog 
productivity of the land is impaired. If the cutter 
gave thought to making an improvement thinning 
and to leaving a sufficient stand for proper forest 
development, the Christmas-tree industry would 
furnish the landowner some return from his 8- to 
20-year-old stock and yet not diminish production 
of the major forest crop. 
The bark of the tanoak has a high tannin content. 
and formerly was used in considerable quantities. 
In recent years the gathering of tanbark has prac- 
tically ceased, owing to depletion of the available 
‘The 
latter has so lowered the price that it is at present 
unprofitable to cut tanoak for bark alone. 
Data on ferns, pitch, berries, and the other mis- 
cellaneous forest products are nonexistent or un- 
supply and competition of other materials. 
satisfactory. Harvesting is done almost exclusively 
by local residents as home industries and no reliable 
These byproducts of the forest, 
mainly of second-growth stands, are now of very 
records are kept. 
little significance in comparison with the major 
commodities, but it is safe to predict that there will 
be a strengthening market for some of them. The 
gathering of these secondary crops hardly ever con- 
flicts with other forest uses, except in some instances 
it has increased the risk of forest fires. 
Soil and Watershed Protection 
In the Douglas-fir region the great extent of the 
old-growth forests, the luxuriance of the shrubby 
vegetation that within 2 or 3 years of logging clothes 
much of the deforested land, the abundance of 
water available for farm, home, and industry, and 
the mildness of the climate render the protective 
function of the forest cover of much less consequence 
than in many other parts of the United States. 
Any vegetative cover does, however, exert an 
ameliorating influence on flood peaks by retarding 
run-off and lengthening the time required for 
