240 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



FORESTRY NOTES. 



Proposed Sale of The Government is advertising for bids on 

 Timber in Tahoe a large body of timber on the Tahoe Na- 

 National Forest. tional Forest, in California, with an offer 

 of terms which inaugurate an important de- 

 parture from the poHcy of the past. About seventy-three million 

 board feet of saw timber is offered for sale, with a lo-year period 

 for the removal of the timber. 



To protect the public, as owners, against sales at what may 

 prove to be too low a price, it has been the policy in the past to 

 allow no operations extending over more than five years. A plan 

 has, however, now been devised for allowing longer operations, 

 with a periodic revision of the stumpage rates. 



At the end of the first five years of the Tahoe sale the price to 

 be paid for the timber cut in the following five years will be 

 determined by the prices of lumber which have ruled in the 

 locality during the preceding year. 



The Tahoe sale will call for the construction of twenty miles 

 of railroad, which will be a common carrier and therefore de- 

 cidedly beneficial to the community — another reason for making 

 the sale which is taken into account. 



That national forest timber is in increasing demand is evi- 

 denced by the fact that over eight hundred and thirty million feet 

 were sold during the year which ended on June 30, 191 1, as against 

 less than five hundred and seventy-five million feet in the previous 

 year. The current year is likely to show a still greater total. 



Some Notes on During the whole of seven hundred miles 

 German Forestry, of travel in Germany, never did I see a 

 single tract of woodland neglected or one 

 that was allowed to exist without yielding up a revenue up to the 

 full bearing power of the soil. I saw hundreds of examples of 

 German forestry, with practically all the species represented ex- 

 cept maritime pine ; — the kiefer of the great sandy plains of Prus- 

 sia, the spruce and fir of Saxony, and the hardwoods of the Rhine, 

 but never a single acre of wasted forest land. And the fact that 

 much of it was on the railroad, with each its siding for swift and 

 cheap transportation, spoke well for a quick and profitable market, 

 with but little expense intervening between the ripe tree and the 

 lumber mill. It was easy to realize how Germany, with a total 

 forest area of only thirty-five million acres, gets an annual yield 



