Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest / Protecting Existing Forests and Growing New Ones, from the Standpoint of the Public and That of the Lumberman, with an Outline of Technical Methods

by E. T. Allen

CONCLUSIONS

Throughout the preceding pages on the financial promise of timber-growing in the West, the attempt has been not to give conclusions but to state certain known facts regarding tree growth and indicate how these may be used in arriving at conclusions based largely upon the conditions and judgment of the individual owner. In many cases they will do little more than suggest further investigation necessary. The Western Forestry & Conservation Association and, doubtless, the District Foresters for the Forest Service, will be glad to discuss such work and assist if possible.

There are, however, several conservative deductions to be made:

1. The Pacific coast states contain large areas having species and climatic conditions peculiarly favorable for forest-growing as a business. The rapidity and quantity of yield insure profit under conditions which would be prohibitive elsewhere.

2. In many cases, perhaps in most, a second crop can be started with little initial expense.

3. There is much land of no value for any other purpose.

4. Even if the owner does not care to hold his land long enough for another crop, or if he is prevented from doing so at some future time by excessive taxation or other prohibition, its disposal value will be greater if it bears young forest growth than if it does not.

5. Stumpage values are certain to advance greatly and their advance will be governed largely by these factors:

a. Speculative influence necessarily accompanying the lessening of the nation's and the world's timber supply.

b. The carrying charges of fire prevention and taxation imposed by the community upon virgin timber, which, since they represent an investment which must be recouped, will either be added in the long run to the price of stumpage exactly in the measure of their severity and so transferred to the consumer, or result in rapid cutting and consequently raise the speculative value of that which escapes cutting. (This the consumer will pay also.)

c. The quantity of new timber grown.

6. It is probable that future demand for timber will reimburse the cost of growing it, be this cost high or low within reasonable limits.

7. This does not mean, however, that the timberland owner will or can generally engage in the business when the cost is excessive. While he could probably make a good profit eventually, such an investment is too heavy and prolonged to be inviting; besides there is the possibility of entire loss by fire. He will naturally compare it with other investments having less disadvantages. For example, since conditions which discourage the growing of new competing forests tend for this very reason to enhance the value of existing forests, he might invest further in the latter instead, with equal ultimate profit and with easier access to his money at any time.

8. Consequently the growing of timber is promising to the private owner only when the investment can be borne easily. Since it has three forms—land value, fire protection, and taxation—all must be moderate or, if one or more is high, the rest must be low.

9. With the fire hazard great at present, and taxation so uncertain as to require allowing for its being excessive, the initial investment must be insignificant.

10. This confines it to land of low sale value and precludes much expense to insure the second crop.

11. To secure the perpetuation of forests on the scale essential to public welfare, the public must provide the private owner better fire protection and an equitable taxation system. Or else it must purchase sufficient cut-over land and engage in forestry itself, bearing the cost and taking the risk.

12. Nevertheless there are several practical exceptions to the somewhat unfavorable situation theoretically outlined above:

(a) Many owners are warranted in holding cut-over land for some time, if not indefinitely, because of the upward trend of land values generally. Unless clearly most useful for agriculture, such land will be made more valuable by a growth of young timber. However indefinite the profit of encouraging this growth and protecting it from fire may be if the present sale value and taxes are computed against such outlay, the two latter charges are being carried anyway and are the most important ones. Merely that it cannot be proved that they can be more than offset is no reason for not trying to compensate as far as possible at slight further expense. While this may not often permit any great effort to reforest, it will usually warrant protection of the natural new growth that will follow if given a chance.

(b) Many owners would prefer to have their milling business continue indefinitely. If such have or can purchase virgin timber to carry them 50 years or more they may do well to grow a log supply to come into use at that time, even if they would not do so merely as a stumpage investment.

(c) It is highly probable that history will repeat itself in the United States, especially in the Pacific coast states where every other condition is so favorable to making forestry a great benefit to the community, and that fire and tax discouragements will be removed as soon as the public realizes the situation. The owner who anticipates this and gets his crop started first will be the first to profit from it, and since it is the compounding toward the latter end of the rotation which now appears serious, the chances are that he will not have a heavy burden before relief of this kind arrives.

(d) Every owner of virgin timber which he expects to hold uncut for 10 years or more should consider reforestation of adjacent cut-over land in the light of fire protection also. It is the inflammable, sun-dried, brake-covered openings, yearly increasing in extent, which constitute his greatest fire menace. The conversion of these into green young growth, too dense for fern and salal and destructible only by the hottest crown fires, is the best protection he can give mature timber surrounded by them. Some additional expense for a few years to accomplish this will usually be cheaper and safer than the patrol otherwise required for an indefinite period.

(e) Advance in value of the land itself, realizable when the second crop is cut, will in many cases be great enough to make an otherwise unpromising reforestation investment profitable.