In Business For The Long Pull

Bv \(/. D. Hagenstein, Forest Engineer West Coast Lumbermen's Association and Pacilic Northwest Loggers Association

No ten-year period in the history of the lumber industrY has witnessed more significant developments in private forestry than those which have taken place during the past decade in the Douglas fir region of Western Oregon and Washington.

The fact that timber is a crop, like wheat or corn or apples, has become an accepted principle. Once the timber crop has grown it must be harvested, for it 'costs money to grorv trees and their harvest and use must bear the charges. Of equal importance is general recognition of the fact that on the manner of harvesting each crop depends the future of the industry. We are in the throes of a full scale reversal of the theories which, for many valid reasons, governed the industry for nearly a century.

Within the past ten years the Douglas fir lumber industry inaugurated the Tree Farm program which is a serious industrial timber-growing enterprise. Approximately 20 per cent of the privately-owned forest land in the region is already officially enrolled in the program, and thousands of acres are being added to the total yearly.

The companies. participating in this program have pledged their lands to the continuous growing of Iorest crops which will help provide continuous revenue to the communities they support, and to the state and nation as well.

There are today three important reasons why industrial forest lands of the area are being managed. for continuous production. First, it has been demonstrated that {orest land can be adequately protected from fire if funds commensdrate with the values at stake are expended for fire protection. Tree Farm owners are now spending 20 to 30 cents every year to protect each acre, whereas they were spending as little as 4 to 5 cents an acre ten years qgo. This gives the long-term timber grower assurance that there will be a crop to harvest when his trees are ripe. Secondly, timber is ,being grown today because it is generally realized that the accidental old-growth raw material supply is definitely limited and that future wood supplies must come from man grown forests. Lastly, the expanding market for wood of all sizes, shapes and complexions assures the financial success of a private timbergrowing investment.

The Tree Farm and the Keep Green programs of the Douglas fir industry have achieved phenomenal results in cutting down the acreage burned over each year. Intensive fire protection consists o{ supplementing the existing protection furnished by the state and the private fire associations with better fire detection facilities; more rapid communication, including radio; better access through improved road systems, and the use of modern mechanized fire suppression equipment. Private foresters have been the leaders in the development of this highly successful type of forest protection.

Fire protection is of primary importance because if the timber-growing investment is to be jeopardized at any time throughout its life, private capital just won't grow timber. Once satisfactory fire protection has been established, the next step is application of common sense forest harvesting principles to assure rooting of a second crop by natural means on every area harvested.

This means leaving seed-distributing trees in such a way that they will not be blown down or destroyed by fire. This is done in several ways, depending on the species of tree, the topography and the local climate.

During years of experience the industry has educated (Continued on Page 28)