PRODUCTIVITY OF RECENTLY CUT LANDS 



263 



Deficiencies due to premature cutting do not 

 appear on public lands. 



INTENSIFIED SURVEY ON 

 WEST COAST 



In order to show additional detaU, and following 

 consultation with foresters and others on the West 

 Coast, a plan was completed to intensify the 

 survey of recently cut lands there. The standard 

 survey had already begun and field examiners 

 were not required to re-examine areas already 

 covered in order to obtain additional records. 

 Therefore, the additional data needed for the 

 intensified survey was not collected in six counties 

 of northeastern Washington, one county west of 

 the Cascades in that State, and one county in 

 western Oregon. In California, over half the field 

 work on the standard productivity survey had 

 been completed, so that additional information 

 was collected on less than half of the area scheduled 

 for examination. For this reason, results are 

 presented only for the Pacific Northwest. ^^ 



Collection of supplementary data began in 

 March 1954. The data collected in addition to 

 that of the standard sm-vey consisted of (a) the 

 acreage cut over on the areas sampled, (b) reasons 

 for nonstocking as observed by field examiners, 

 (c) tally of species comprising stocking both before 

 and after cutting in order to detect change, (d) 

 whether partial or clear-cutting methods had been 

 used, (e) tally of felling ages to show by age classes 

 proportion of cutover area which was clear cut. 

 Aside from table 150, which presents statistics on 

 commercial forest area, operating area, and area 

 cut over in a single year by ownership classes, no 

 attempt has been made to expand other sample 

 data to obtain broad regional averages. Instead, 

 results are expressed as percentages of the total 

 number of sample points examined on recently 

 cut lands within ownership classes, forest type 

 groups, or combinations of these two. 



Area of Recent Cuttd^g 



The survey indicated that annual cutting dur- 

 ing recent years approximates 630 thousand acres 

 or 1.5 percent of the entire commercial forest area 

 (table 150). However, careful examination of 

 individual field tally sheets indicates that field 

 instructions were not uniformly followed and that 

 some field examiners failed to obtain full informa- 

 tion on total area recently cut on the larger private 

 and public ownerships. A bias was thus intro- 

 duced in final results which show low cutover area 

 figures for large private and public lands. 



" Aft«r preliminary analysis of the limited amount of 

 additional field data taken in California, the Forest Service 

 felt that results would not be sufficiently reliable for 

 publication. However, copies of preliminary tabulations 

 will be provided to those who have use for them. 



Table 150. — Commercial forest area, operating 

 area, and estimated area cut in one year in the 

 Pacific Northwest,^ by ownership class 



PRIVATE HOLDINGS BY SIZE CLASS 



Class of ownership 



Com- 

 mercial 

 forest 

 area 



Oper- 

 ating 

 area 



Approx- 

 imate 

 area 

 cut in 

 1 year ^ 



Percent 

 of com- 

 mercial 

 area 

 cut in 

 1 year 



10-100 acres 



100-500 acres 



500-5,000 acres 



Thou- 

 sand 

 acres 

 2,004 

 3, 271 

 3,058 



Thou- 

 sand 

 acres 

 627 

 1,643 

 2,095 



Thou- 

 sand 

 acres 

 80 

 116 

 105 



Percent 

 4.0 

 3.5 

 3. 4 



Total, small 



private 



5,000-50,000 acres 



50,000 and larger 



8,333 



2,887 

 6,460 



4,365 

 2,183 

 5, 567 



301 

 48 

 73 



3. 6 

 1. 7 

 1. 1 



Total, all size classes___ 



17, 680 



12, 115 



422 



2. 4 



HOLDINGS BY TYPE OF OWNERSHIP 





Private: 











Farm 



5,048 



2,658 



231 



4. 6 



Lumber manufactur- 











ing 



6,717 



5, 839 



85 



1. 3 



Pulp manufacturing. _ 



1,681 



1, 431 



24 



1. 4 



Other wood manufac- 











turing 



341 



224 



10 



2.9 



Other private 



3,893 



1, 963 



72 



1. 9 



All private 



17, 680 



12, 115 



422 



2.4 



Public: 











National forest 



16, 080 



10, 432 



113 



. / 



Bureau of Land Man- 











agement 



2,564 



2, 289 



14 



. 5 



Indian 



2, 169 



1,852 



51 



2. 4 



Other Federal 



58 



52 



1 



1. 7 



State. 



2, 450 

 505 



2, 168 

 197 



26 

 3 



1. 5 



County and local 



. 6 



Total 



23, 826 



16, 990 



208 



. 9 



Total, all ownerships 



41, 506 



29, 105 



630 



1. 5 



' Excludes area in northeastern Washington in U. S. 

 Forest Service Region 1 that was not covered in the sup- 

 plemental survey. 



2 Although estimated from the best data available these 

 are, for most classes of ownership, approximations only. 

 Based principally on 1947 for the western portion of the 

 region and 1952 for the eastern portion. 



Stockevg Poorest on Small 

 Ownerships 



Both the standard survey (table 77, appendix 

 section Basic Statistics) and recalculation of 

 original stocking data on a sample point basis 

 (table 151) show that in the Pacific Northwest 

 stocking is poorest for all forest type groups on 



