WESTERN YELLOW PINE IF OREGON. 41 
FOREST MANAGEMENT OF PRIVATE LANDS. 
At the present time yellow-pine stands on privately owned lands in 
Oregon are usually logged with no thought of securing a second crop 
of timber on the land cut over. All the merchantable timber is cut, 
the brush is allowed to lie where it falls, and the area is given no pro- 
tection from fire. As a result, fire usually gets into these slashings 
and consumes many of the seedlings and saplings which were on the 
ground as "advance reproduction" before the cutting. There being 
no seed trees, the area does not reforest, but remains unstocked, or 
inadequately stocked, practically an unproductive waste of idle land. 
Such land is usually retained by the owner because it yields a rental 
for grazing purposes, which about equals the taxes upon it. 
A part of the yellow-pine land which has been cut over already is 
adapted to agriculture, and therefore it has quite naturally been an 
object of the owner to remove the timber in such a way as to anni- 
hilate the forest. But the majority of the yellow-pine land in the 
State is absolute forest land; L e., it is too dry, or too rocky, or too 
steep, or at too high an altitude for agriculture and is land which 
serves its greatest usefulness in the production of forest crops. Where 
such absolute forest land has become reforested after destructive lum- 
bering, it has been by chance rather than by the intent of the operator. 
It has been necessary up to the present time, because of economic 
conditions, that the logging should be of a destructive nature. How- 
ever, with the rapidly increasing value of stumpage the probability 
of reform in timberland taxation, the greater security against forest 
fires, and the increased stability and confidence in timberland invest- 
ment, it can be said confidently that the time is here when the yellow- 
pine timber operator in Oregon can afford to do something toward 
conducting his logging operations and handling his cut-over lands so 
that they will remain productive of forest crops. The Government 
can afford to leave standing from 10 to 30 per cent of an uneven-aged 
forest as the basis of a second cut, and allow it to grow for 50 or 60 
years, but the individual owner can not afford to tie up an investment 
in slow-growing timber for this length of time unless a speculative 
rise in the value of the reserve stumpage be counted upon. In short, 
the individual owner must take off the tract all the timber that he can 
market at a profit in order to defray his logging and fixed charges and 
to get back his invested capital; but even if he must cut off of the tract 
all the merchantable trees, and can not follow the method practicable 
on public lands, there are several measures which he can adopt to 
promote the growth of future crops of timber and to make the tract 
more valuable. The raising of such a second crop is in no wise incom- 
patible with the use of the land for grazing. 
1. He can protect the virgin woods from fire. This is being done 
with fair success now on many private holdings in the State, and all 
the indications are that it will be universal and effective throughout 
the yellow-pine region of Oregon before many years. 
