40 BULLETIN 418, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
diameter in the tops as practicable so as to cause the least waste, and to a minimum 
diameter of 7 inches when merchantable in the judgment of the forest officer in charge. 
The log lengths shall be varied so as to make this utilization possible. 
All yellow-pine logs are merchantable under the terms of this agreement which are 
not less than 10 feet long, at least 8 inches in diameter inside bark at the small end, 
and, after deductions for visible indications of defect, scale 33 per cent of their gross 
scale. * * * 
DISPOSAL OF THE LOGGING DEBRIS. 
The brush left after logging decays slowly in the dry climate of 
eastern Oregon, and the fire season is long. Slashings on which the 
brush is not disposed of properly are serious fire menaces. If they 
become ignited they make a bad fire which is apt to destroy all the 
young trees so carefully reserved in the logging and those which have 
sprung up afterwards. The brush should be piled as the logging 
proceeds, in small compact piles, away from the bases of reserved 
trees and as far as possible from groups of reproduction. When the 
piles become dry enough and the season is such that there is no danger 
of a general conflagration, preferably in the late fall, the piles should 
be burned. The danger of a severe fire within the next few years is 
then practically removed. The cost of lopping the larger pieces of 
debris and piling all the brush in a thorough fashion amounts to 
somewhat less than 25 cents for each thousand feet of timber logged, 
and the cost of burning it amounts to a few cents more. 
Besides creating a security against fires, the piling and burning of 
the brush has added advantages; it mates the logging decidedly 
easier, since, if the piles are properly located, the teamsters and horses 
can more readily get to the logs to haul them out, and it also tends to 
prevent the inordinate increase of bark beetles and other insect ene- 
mies that breed freely in logging debris. 
In exceptionally dry situations where reproduction is scanty and 
has difficulty in becoming established, as on the pumice soils of the 
Klamath-Deschutes divide, it may be better forest management to 
scatter the brush as a mulch over the surface of the ground, in order 
that it may assist in preventing the evaporation of moisture from the 
soil and in shielding the young seedlings from hot sun, dry winds, 
and frost. The method is being tried on a small scale experimentally 
by the Forest Service at the present time and is used quite generally 
in the Southwest, where the fire risk is less and reproduction is diffi- 
cult. But it should be used only in localities where the fire risk is 
small, as where the trees are scattered and the brush does not make 
a continuous or heavy cover. At all events, fire lines or strips on which 
all the brush is burned should be built, so that should a fire get into 
the debris it could be confined to a small area. 
To enforce the proper disposal of the slash on sales of stump age on 
the National Forests, a clause such as the following is being used in 
the contracts with the permittees: 
Tops of all trees felled, whether merchantable or nonmerchantable, shall be lopped, 
and all brush piled compactly at a safe distance from living trees, as directed by the 
forest officer in charge. 
