ttTrees In Your Futurett bf

Kenneth Smith' Vlce-President, The Pocific Lumber Co. Before Junior logging Conference

Mendocino Woodlnnds-April 29, 1955

I am delighted that you have invited me here to talk about the future trees might hold for you. I am working on my 46th year in the lumber industry and I love it. It is one of the most interesting businesses in the world and one that ofiers young men as great a prospect of the rewarding satisfactions of life as any you could choose.

I can think of no better place for a talented young man to invest his own future than working with'a well managed processor of forest products which orvned enough wellforested land to keep its plants supplied with raw material. You are coming on the scene at just the right time.

Growing trees as a crop is practically a brand new industry, and the sawmills that make trees into lumber are in the future going to be just one of a great number of wood-processing plants that will make 5O0/6 more of the trees we grow into useful things th'an any sawmill has ever been able to.

Changes have been occurring so fast in these last 20 years that no one today can even hazard, a guess as to the ultimate limit of wood's usability. Not only are we finding ways to use more of each tree and to use smaller trees, but also to use scores of species of trees that were never used to make lumber.

The pulp and paper industry has spent millions of dollars in research and has found ways to make paper products out of trees that grow very fast-what we used to call weed trees because they could not be used to make lumber.

The chemists have dramatically changed all concepts of wood use. Their earliest contribution (about 5O/60 years ago) was to develop wood preservatives and their most recent contributions have been in salvaging useful chemicals that are a part of the tree.

In this past half century it is their contribution to increased utilization of wood fiber that has made it profitable to grow trees. Synthetic textiles from wood, such as rayon and nylon, now dominate the textile industry. Chemists in the Western Pine Laboratory found a way to control swelling and shrinkage of pine and revitalized the sash and door industry.

Chemists are responsible for such minor developments as impervious wood table tops, laminated shoe lasts, hoe handles, fishing plugs, golf club heads and bowling pins; and for the creation of such whole new industries as plywood, hardboard, particle board, and laminated roof trusses and ship keels.

Wood fiber and bark fiber are made into insulation for homes, cold storage plants and refrigerators, and into such things as felted cushioning material, moulding compounds, soil conditioners, oil well sealers, filters, and even blankets and hats. Sawdust is made into briquettes and logs for fuel, panels for doors, alcohol for synthetic rubber and molasses for cattle feed.

The Germans and Swedes have even developed a high protein human food from wood. Hitler's thousand-year Reich was to have been the "age of wood." The Germans call wood "IJniversal 1fussfeff"-meaning "the material which can produce anything."

Certainly wood has more uses now and greater future possibitities than any other raw material

In my own time I have seen our industry find use for approximately twice as much of the tree-stepping utiliza- tion up from around 30% to above 60%. I firmly believe that within another half century we shall closely approach our goal of. lffi/o utilization.

The golden age of the American forest industry has just begun. Our modern economy is not threatening extinction of our forests, but on the contrary is, for the first time in our history, providing the economic incentive to grow trees as a crop.

In the past 15 years,39 million acres, in 33 states (1.9 million of them in California), have been formally dedicated to tree farming. These formal Tree Farms range in size from lO-acre farm woodlots (70/o of the Tree Farms are run by farmers and other non-industrial owners) to such large industrial forests as the 633,00o-acre Tree F'arm at Mt. St. llelens, Washington.

Cali{ornia has only 2.6% (197) of the dedicated Tree Farms, but they contain 5% (1,854,590) of the total acreage. Our average size (9,414 acres) is nearly double the national average of 5,022 acres.

We are already at the point (we reached it in 1952) $rhere total annual drain (total use plus loss from insects and fire) in cubic feet of wood fiber and board feet of saw timber is being replaced with growth, and we will from here on out be able to grow as much wood as we us€.

I believe all this spells OPPORTUNITY in capital letters for young men lvho have the resourcefulness, ability, initiative, courage and patient persistence that it takes to fit into this fast-moving evolution of a very old traditionbound, individualistic industry into a modern, highly integrated, progressively managed industry characterized by a very large capital investment per worker.

This evolving tree-growing and processing organization is going to require an investment of at least $30,000 per employee, as compared with the national average of around $10/11,000, and it has developed so fast that there is a tremendous need in the industry for men with the abilities and skills required to do the job that is there to be done. Obviously, the man with forestry and engineering training is going to fit into this opportunity, but other thousands of people must bring to it hundreds of different skills in land management, fire protection, construction and maintenance, woods and plant operation, research, marketing, human relations (employee, public and governmental), and in accounting, financial and legal fields. It is estimated that growing, harvesting and processing trees in all these ramifiecl industries will provide employment for around three million people, so there is going to be plenty of opportunity for young men who have what it takes.

There will be unusual opportunities for advancement for every ambitious young man who is rvilling to work with his hands as well as his head during the long period of training that is necessary in order to learn from experience how wood fiber behaves. The executive staff required for coordinating land ownership, tree growing and harvesting, processing, marketing, research and humar relations on such a large scale will be picked from those who have the foresight to prepare for the job ahead while doing well the job at hand.

I am well aware that in all I have said I am influenced by the feeling every man who loves his work has, that his own field is the most interesting and ofiers the greatest prospect of rewarding satisfactions, and I expect and surely rvant you to balance my enthusiasm against all the information you can get and its appeal to you. No business and no industry stands alone. All are, in fact, interrelated and interdependent, and in their fundamentals all the business careers open to you are more alike than different. The same qualities and training that make for success in one are applicable to all.

You are going to live out your business careers in an economic and political atmosphere and under a degree of regimentation so wholly di,fferent from the freedomof-opportunity system which made America great that it would be a brash and irresponsible man indeed who would undertake to advise younger men too positively on the best road to travel when all roads lead in new directions and toward new frontiers.

The easy road in your lifetime is going to be to go along with the tide-to fit yourself into the mould of a planned economy. The hard road is going to be to go against the tide, to maintain your individualitR to do your own planning.

Our industry has traditionally bred men who love and fight for freedom, and growing trees for the future will keep you close to nature, help you to look at the long range as well as the short range effect of your -own actions and of government actions and encourage you to do your part in the fight to keep your God-given freedom and respect for the dignity of the individual in a world that is selling itself into the slavery of the misnamed welfare state.

I'm going to leave with you one bit of advice and one suggestion as to what I consider most important to making a success of living a life.

The advice is that which I gave my own son when he made his choice of a career. If you become aware some day that -you have made a mistake-cut and run right there and start doing what you reallv want to do, because the most rewarding satisfactions you will get in- this life will come from work that was well done because you liked doing 1t.

And my suggestion is that you put your faith in workplain old-fashioned hard work.

I firmly believe that the habit of work-patient persistence-makes nore contribution to success than brilliance. I like rvhat the great poet.Edgar Guest said rvhen asked if he believed in luck:

"The wind usually blows one way or the other," said Eddie, "and if it happens to be blowin' your way, that's luck. If it's blowin' against you, you tack. If it stops blowin' you wait until it starts again. BUT IF YOU AREN'T OUT THERE TRYING. IT WON'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE WHICH WAY IT BLOWS."

Lote John Griffirh Recolled

A "50 Years Ago" item in the Los Angeles Times, October 17, mentioned the death on that date in 1906 of John M. Griffith, resident since 1862 and president of a transportation and lumber business, at the age of 77. A home he built in 1869 was the first modern house erected in Los Angeles; it later became a Presbyterian church and was a city landmark.

I OO Yeqrs of Auburn Lumber

(Continued from Page 22) contractor's entrance and office--will drive home this point with force.

And it should, too, because it represents a ground-up project, engineered by the Garehime Corporation, lumberyard display experts, who developed the master plan from their own years of experience in lumberyard merchandising and combined that plan with th€ ideas of just about everyone connected with Auburn Lumber Company's retail operation.

In addition to the newly expanded retail department, Auburn Lumber Company operates a Retail Appliance Division (adjacent and connected to the new store), a Heating and Air Conditioning Division, a Mill and Cabinet Shop, a Saw Shop and a tree farm-the E. T. Robie Memorial Tree Farm-which produces approximately 10 million feet of peelers and sawlogs per year.

The management of Auburn Lumber Company should well be proud of the part they have played-and are still playing-in the dynamic development of Central California. They should also be proud of the fact they are heading a firm that remains untarnished by lethargy, one that has every right to another big celebration in 2056 A. D.