VALUE ADDED BY 
MANUFACTURING - 1947 
per capita 
$ 565 | 
uti 
e 
Ss 
a 
S 
FicuRE 12.—Hauling timber over a timber access road on the Kootenai National Forest. 
Inability to get at timber that should be logged has been a major handicap 
to forest development. Many stands are effectively locked up by the absence 
of roads over which to move the timber. During the past half century many 
miles of road have been built, but they are hardly more than the minimum 
required to protect the timber from fire. A large part of the logging has been 
on the fringes of the forest. If the forest is to sustain the maximum of industrial 
development, it must be made accessible enough to permit a desirable degree 
of utilization and management (fig. 12) . 
A large volume of mature and overmature timber presents a difhcult man- 
Cutting must be spread over a long period while young 
stands are being grown (fig. 13), and there is a constant temptation to cut too 
agement problem. 
heavily. Such timber is particularly vulnerable to attacks by insects and disease. 
In fact, in the past 50 years there has been a stupendous loss from insect 
attacks and the problem has not been coped with adequately. 
Any consideration of the big job of handling Montana’s forest to produce 
continuing high yields of timber sooner or later brings up the matter of 
ownership and the job of management being done. Both private and public 
owners have satisfactory records in holding down fire losses in a highly flam- 
mable forest. However, adequate forest management means more than that. 
It means careful conversion of an overmature forest to a young growing forest, 
accelerating the growth rate, and utilizing large volumes of timber now being 
wasted. 
F-462046 
Montana has a timber-growing ca- 
pacity that has not been utilized to the extent possible and desirable. Greater utilization requires, among other things, 
road construction to make the timber available. 
12 
Forest Resource Report No. 5 U. 8. Department of Agriculture | 
