worked 50 or more days off their farms the pre- 
ceding year. Much of the off-farm employment was 
in producing Christmas trees and in other woods 
work. A study of Lincoln County in the northwest 
corner of the State revealed that six-tenths of 
its basic income is derived from the lumber in- 
dustry and other forestry work. 
For the State as a whole, forest industries rank 
behind agriculture and mining in both employ- 
ment and value of products (9, 14, 17), as shown 
by the following: 
Value of products 
(dollars) 
Vii eral eel O4 fitness eye een Tt eee ot 87,200,000 
BARI ae O48 ieee either heen ed ee Pe eee ye Oa) 393,000,000 
ROTES tRLOA lead eerie Putra my Pony arrnat ee ALE cee) 50,200,000 
Employees in major 
industries 
(number) 
Mining and metal manufacturing, 1948 .......... 14,500 
BNO CULE Se MOA bye ces ve ery eo eee es ee 59,600 
Lumber and timber product industry, 1948...... 5,800 
Interstate railroads, 1948 
FicurE 3.—This old picture was taken some time between 1884 and 1892 on the Deerlodge National Forest. 
The income and employment figures do not tell 
all of the story. An abundant timber supply close at 
hand has been a tremendous asset in the develop- 
ment of other industries. For example, since hard- 
rock mining started, 31% billion dollars worth of 
copper, lead, zinc, gold, and manganese have been 
dug from Montana’s hills. It took a lot of wood 
to produce this wealth. Back in the early days 
thousands upon thousands of cords of fuel wood 
were cut to keep the smelter fires roaring (fig. 3). 
Now that other fuels are used in smelting, the 
main use for wood is in underground timbering, 
without which it would not be possible to go deep 
into the earth for metals. 
A study a few years ago showed that 14 board 
feet of lumber and sawed timbers and 4 board feet 
of round mine timbers were required for each 
ton of ore mined in the Butte district (20). To 
say it differently, the average annual growth of 1 
acre of forest was required to produce 5 tons of 
F-173856 
Stacked on 
these rolling hillsides are row upon row of fuel wood destined for the smelter at Anaconda. 
Forest Resources of Montana 
5 
