Putting Our Forests On Full Ti me Production

By H. V. Simpson, Executive Vice President West Cocrst Lumbermen's Associqtion, Portlqnd, Oregon

Keynote of the still-growing lumber industry in the Pacific Northwest is an overall program embracing greater utilization of forest products as well as practical steps to ensure the endurance of this billiondol1ar enterprise for generations to come.

Perhaps the most fundamental project in this general program is the establishment of Tree Farms. forests, which supply needs.

Scattered throughout the Douglas fir region, that relatively small, compact, rich forest-growing area west of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington, are more than 2AO re-logging operations. A re-logger goes in after the prime crop of huge trees has been harvested with conventional heavy equipment. lle uses small, light gear, tractors and a few men. He srveeps the forest floor clean of small tops, broken pieces, chunks, short logs, and material which the big logger with his heavy overhead and more costly operation has never been able to take out and come close to breaking even.

Private timberland owners hold titleto something less than half of the region's 26 million acres of commercial one-third of the nation's softtvood

Since 1943 the private operators have placed 2,2@,000 acres of their highly productive forests under intensive scientific forest management. Tl-rese lands have been certified as West Coast Tree Farms. More than one million additional acres, not yet certified, await full inspection to be so certified.

When a private timber owner applies for a Tree Farm rnembership, he agrees to commit his land to a long-range program of management.

What is a tree farm ?A tree farm is an area of land devoted primarily to the continuous grorvth of merchantable forest products under consciously applied forest practices.

In order to accomplish this purpose tree farmers commit themselves to maintain a specified area of land for gror,ving forest crops, to provide protection from fire, insects, disease, and other sources of injury; and to cut the timber so as to maintain continuous forest growth.

A vigorous program is now under way in our region to extend the principle of sustained yield forest management; that means we will so balance our annual harvest from the forests that it r'vill not exceed the capacity of the land to reproduce. It implies a practical balance betrveen cut and grorvth. By this program rve hope to sustain forever a steady florv of forest products from our soil.

Farsighted lumbermen are planning to delay complete harvest of the great stands of virgin timber until such time as the millions of acres of second crops are capable of sustaining this industry's woodworking and processing plants. As one method of achieving this, they have in recent years g'one more fully into the field of complete utilization.

Lumbermen today are reducing logging lvaste to a minimum. This maximum utilization program takes several paths.

Following on the heels of the re-logger has come a veritable horde of small portable mills. Logs for these mills, by and large, come from re-logging shows, or small, isolated holdings.

The re-logger gets a considerable volume of saw logs, pulp logs and wood volume valuable today in various wood processing plants.

A second operator who is turning former uneconomical wood volume of the forests into usable products is the salvage logger, working in burned areas. In the case of the Tillamook Burn salvage operation, some 35 logging firms, working since the first disastrous blaze ol 1933, which took a toll of 12 billion feet of prime, virgin timber, have salvaged nearly 6 billion feet of timber. Other salvage logging operations have been equally efficient where they moved in immediately on the last trurning embers of smaller fires.

Still another part of the utilization parade is the prelogging movement. Here loggers go into thi.ck stands of second grorvth, take out selected timber for pulp, piling and some sawlogs to give tl-re remaining stand room to spread and grow more rapidly. Other pre-loggers go into selected areas of dying, rotting old growth, and cut out the over-ripe areas 'ivhich need attention, leaving blocks of timber not so far gone.

Another important phase of our "helping nature" program is our re-planting activities. At Nisqually, Washington, east of Olympia, forest owners operate the Forest Industries Nursery where six million seedling trees are grown each year. These trees are planted in the fall and winter months on private forest holdings in Oregon and Washington. Planting is done on areas .ivhere natural restocking" failed to appear, generally on areas rvhere recurring fires have killed all seed sources.

It should be emphasized that hand planting, although of great significance, constitutes only a minor part-roughly 10 per cent-of reforestation. The Douglas fir region is the most prolific natural large tree-growing area in the world. Trees literally cannot be prevented from springing up in thick stands over vast acres if the simplest reforestatiqn measures are observed.

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Putting Our Forests On Full Time Production

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These "reforestation rules" are followed by all loggers because they have become a part of the state law in Washington and Oregon. These laws were initiated by the timbermen themselves as a sensible means of perpetuating indefinitely the billion-dollar Northwest lumber industry'

Loggers and tree farmers may leave seed trees, several to the acre, which provide sufficient seeds to restock an area freshly harvested within a relatively ferv years. Still other operators leave solid blocks of timber adjacent to logged lands, under a staggered setting plan, which insures rapid restocking of cutover lands. The seed blocks are not cut until the first areas are restocked.

No work on closer utilization rvould be complete without mention of the scientific studies leading to developments which will be of immense practical benefit to this area in the future.

Pulp plants already have formed an "industry within an industry," drawing their rarv materials from formerly ignored products of the forest.

The manufacture of alcohol from 'ivood has been proved a success, and rapid expansion of this economically profitable operation may be looked for. Even the bark of the Douglas fir, long a waste product, is being utilized experimentally in the production of cork.

These are only a few of the hopeful developments. We are approaching the time when we 'ivill use every scrap of material from forests which are producing on a timeless basis.

Operctes Eiqht Hqrdwood Scwmills

Wood Mosaic Co., pioneer hardwood producers, operate eight sawmills in their own name in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and West Virginia, also one plant in Canada.

This ,concern was a prime producer of walnut gun stocks for the allies during the war, and supplied much other war material. It was the first hardwood manufacturing firm to receive the Army-Navy "E" award.

A. C. Pascoe, Los Angeles, is the company's sales representative for the Pacific Coast and Western Canada.