For most rural communities of the region, future 
local supplies of forest cordwood apparently will be 
adequate. Most farms in the region contain some 
forest land that with but little care and attention 
could supply farm fuel requirements. 
Hardwoods 
More labor is required to log 1,000 board feet of 
hardwoods than to log a like quantity of conifers, 
and the manufacture of hardwoods into the finished 
product is carried farther. Approximately 90 per- 
cent of the hardwood lumber cut in the region is re- 
manufactured locally, practically all being used for 
furniture. The quantity of hardwood lumber and 
veneer produced has gradually increased and in 
1935 amounted to 50 million board feet, of which 
75 percent was alder and practically all the remain- 
der was maple. This annual cut was about 1 per- 
cent of the total stand of these two species. Nearly 
all the hardwood production was in the Puget Sound 
Columbia River, Willamette River, and Oregon 
coast districts. 
The supply of maple available within reasonable 
hauling distances of certain hardwood mills is in- 
114 
adequate, but alder is plentiful in the vicinity of all 
centers of production. There is between 900 million 
and 1 billion board feet of alder in the northern part 
of the Oregon coast district, where alder stands have 
claimed the old burned-over conifer sites on fertile 
benches and lowerslopes. In this locality conifers are 
rapidly invading many alder stands and will grad- 
ually shade them out, causing the elimination of the 
present extensive stands except along the principal 
stream courses and the loss of several hundred mil- 
lion board feet of commercial timber within two or 
three decades unless the timber is utilized earlier. 
To utilize this timber before it is lost through the 
natural process of forest succession, the present rate 
of cutting will have to be increased and additional 
markets for alder will have to be developed. Most 
of the alder trees cut for lumber or veneer are less 
than 50 years in age, and many are only 25 to 35 
years. Considering the short rotation and the large 
quantity of local labor required in the remanufac- 
ture of alder lumber, it would seem desirable to 
manage certain of the extensive mixed alder-conifer 
stands in the Oregon coast district for alder pro- 
duction instead of letting nature take its course. 
