The Place of the Forests in the 
Economy of Montana 
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N 1948 the average income per individual in 
\| Montana was $1,696. ‘This is a very significant 
figure for it is the highest on record for the 
State up to that time, and 22 percent higher than 
the national average in 1948 (16).* Montana has 
not always ranked so high (fig. 1). Since 1928 it 
has ranked as low as twenty-eighth among the 
States in per capita income, and it fell from fifth 
place in 1948 to eighteenth in 1949. Though all 
States have had their ups and downs, instability 
has been a greater problem here than in most of 
them. 
By and large, the principal objective of those 
who are thinking of Montana’s future is to achieve 
the stability which figure 1 shows to be lacking, 
and to stabilize income at a high level. Among 
other things, this means capitalizing fully on the 
resources available. One of the more important of 
Montana’s natural resources is the forest. 
*Numbers in parentheses refer to Literature Cited, Pi Dir: 
PER CAPITA INCOME PAYMENTS 
IN MONTANA AS PERCENT OF 
PER CAPITA INCOME PAYMENTS 
30) IN UNITED STATES ea 
per-capita INCOME 
UNITED STATES 
100 
| ee 
Q ; 
1929 1935 1940 1945 1949 
FicureE 1. 
Forest Resources of Montana 
There are 22 million acres’ of forest land in Mon- 
tana, one-fourth of the State, as shown in the fol- 
lowing tabulation of land use: 
Million 
acres 
OTes thiamin exe ares Eta : 22.4 
Cropland and plowable pasture in farms (1940) eale:8 
Pasture =Tange wes es scaee sais aote be eet 54.6 
Othermlanads cares sow van ain. a 1.8 
AO Case Se ieee a moniateemage a Sod 93:6 
It is a vast forest that has produced many benefits, 
yet has much more to give. This report is con- 
cerned primarily with what timber use can con- 
tribute to the economy of the State. However, 
three other important forest values—water, recrea- 
tion, and forage—are also considered. 
Water, timber, recreation, and forage are all 
products of the same forest, sometimes of the same 
acre. It has long been one of the cardinal prin- 
ciples of forestry to manage for multiple use. We 
cannot, for example, afford to make timber the 
single purpose of management to the extent of 
sacrificing the other resources. Though the various 
uses of the forest do not intermesh perfectly, good 
forest management involves fitting them together 
so as to provide the greatest composite benefit. 
Timber Values In The Forest 
More than a century ago white men began hew- 
ing at Montana’s great forest. Late in the 1840's 
the first sawmill was set up in the Bitterroot Valley. 
During the mining boom of the 1860’s and follow- 
*'To permit a ready grasp of the salient forest area and 
volume statistics, the figures in the text and in the tables 
included with the text have been rounded off to the nearest 
tenth of a million acres and tenth of a billion board feet. 
Exact figures are tabulated in the appendix. Definitions of 
terms used are given in the appendix also. 
