The Picture Changes

By Robert O. Leonard \Western Pine Association

The Western pine lumber industry today is finding itself in the position of the small boy with a piece of cake.

After working his way carefully through part of the frosting, he discovers he's going to have to eat the cake to get at the icing in the center-and then learns the cake is pretty good, too.

For years, WeStern pine lumbermen have concentrated pretty largely on production of the three Western pines-Idaho white pine, Ponderosa pine, and sugar pine-among all the species of timber growing together throughout the west. Now, for a number of reasons, they're being forced to leaven their output with a fair to sometimes heavy proportion of associated woods -Douglas fir, larch, white fir, Engelmann spruce, western red cedar, incense cedar or I-odgepole pine. Frequently with several of them.

And they're learning that the actuality isn't nearly as dreadful as the prospect.

For it's becoming clearly apparent that each of the associated species has its purpose and therefore its value in the utilization field.

The Western pines have long been known for their versatility. They've accomplished the toughest to the touchiest of jobs-from concrete forms to intricate woodwork. Hence, they recluired no specialization in production or promotion. Sawing, surfacing, drying, stocking, handling, shipping, advertising, selling, could all be done on a single-product level with resultant economies.

But eventually there appeared a cloud over this economic liden. Unprecedented demand, eady lack of information on speed and size of cutting cycles, longer hauls from woods to mills and higher unit costs began to make unsound the practice of logging only pine trees from any given acre.

To harvest only the pine, for example, from a company's 150,000-acre tirnber supply meant that it was necessary to come around oftener or, in other words, speed up the cycle, if one existed. If the mill capacity were geared higher than rate of tir.nber growth, it meant the company must add to its holdings or go elsewhere for its raw product.

Additional timberland ownership (if land were strategically available) meant greater expense for inventory, fire and insect protection, taxes, road building and the many other responsibilities of property. Elsewhere meant timber buying, usually from federal agencies which required proportionate all-species logging.

A corollary problem often involved regeneration. Leaving more trees of associated woods in the forest promoted reproduction of those species to the long-term exclusion of the pines. Not a pleasant prospect for the old-line and hopefully permanent pine manufacturer.

The alternative was simple, but to the pine producer initially formidable, and applied to privately-owned lands and federal timber as well: log the associated species. To many a veteran lumberman, thd associated woods were, if they had to be cut, fit only to burn or leave in the woods. In the days when the demand for and supply of pines made associated species unmarketable, they were given short shrift in processing. Usually they weren't seasoned or were seasoned on inexact schedules; sawing and surfacing were done haphazardly, and they were sometimes sold as pine substitutes when their properties, for the use involved, were very nearly as divergent as those of ebony and balsa.

The result was dissatisfaction all around. And so the notion grew that white fir, for instance, or Lodgepole pine or incense cedar was better off on the stump.

Thus it was that, under pressure and with many a crossed finger, pine operators turned reluctantly to diversified production. Today, diversified manufacture is an accomplished fact among most Western pine mills and, what's more, a lot of the rnisgivings have developed into enthusiasm. IJser acceptance ' of properly seasoned and manufactured white fir, Douglas fir, larch and the rest, at first slow, has demonstrated thdt there is indeed a market for specific purpose and general utility species available economically in a full range of grades and sizes.

Custorners have learned that white fir, flat, straight and

Con Be Instolled Where Spoce o Swings through Wide Arc ls Limited. Flexibility t !9"y to lnstoll, Before or After o Righr or left Door Instqilotion. Plostering. r Sturdy conslruction. Double strength ond Durobility. o ldeol for Aportments, Bungo- low Courls, Smaller Homes.