Nod 
C} 
TIMBER GROWING IN DOUGLAS FIR REGION 30 
profitableness of intensive timber growing will become more appar- 
ent and its practice more general. 
The State and the Federal Governments can afford to practice, 
and the latter is now practicing, measures that the private owner 
rightly or wrongly may not as yet feel he can afford to undertake. 
The forest management on the national forests of this region goes 
further than the essential measures recommended in the foregoing 
section. 
It is the object in the following pages to outlme very briefly forest 
practices supplementary to minimum measures which are necessary 
to ceucute full timber crops. Some of them are now in effect on 
private lands or on the national forests; others are technically desir- 
able but can be put into effect only as economic conditions justify 
them. What may seem impracticable to-day may be regarded as 
highly profitable 5 or 10 years from now. 
These measures will give greater assurance of continuous crops 
and larger yields than will the primary measures alone, but they 
will cost more. Even in the matter of expense, however, intensive 
management designed to produce both the largest crops and the best 
quality crops has certain obvious advantages. The two major items 
of expense in forestry for the private owner in this region are taxes 
and protection from fire. Both of these expenses remain the same 
whether the timber-growing measures be crude or intensive and the 
crop partial or full. An owner contemplating continuous produc- 
tion will do well to determine how much he is justified in spending 
to establish the new crop, 1. e., what intensity of management on 
his particular operation will yield maximum returns, and whether it 
will not pay him better to strive for maximum production than to 
be satisfied with the results that the simplest measures will give. 
Intensive forest management to secure full crops of timber wil 
not be fundamentally different in method from the minimum meas- 
ures. The difference is chiefly one of degree. Ali the measures 
recommended as primary are equally important for intensive timber 
erowing gauged to attain maximum production. They need, however, 
to be intensified and supplemented. 
Under both crude and intensive forest management in the Douglas 
fir type clean cutting with broadcast burning of slashings is recom- 
mended. Fire controi will always be a big part of any timber-growing 
activity in this region. Douglas fir will be the principal species 
sought for the second crop except in the spruce-hemlock belt and 
in the upper-slope types. 
Forestry is still so new in the Douglas fir region that there has not 
yet been time to demonstrate all the refinements of intensive prac- 
tice. Further research is necessary, particularly in such matters as 
slash disposal in the fog belt, the control of the mixture of species, 
the making of thinnings, and the source of the seed that must be 
depended upon for Douglas fir reproduction. The following recom- 
mendations must be taken with the understanding that the exact 
technic of intensive silviculture will be much improved through 
further study and experimentation.° 
a 
> This ae is limited to a consideration of methods of cutting and regenerating old-growth virgin 
timber, with which the logging industry will be occupied chiefly for some time. The methods to be 
employed in Larvesting second growth and providing natural reproduction thereafter is another matter, 
which can be left until the industry is more concerned with the exploitation of younger timber, as it will 
be in another two or three decades, : ; ; 
