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

CUTTING METHODS

If there is anyone for whom the practice of forestry is practical and profitable, it is the farmer who owns the timber he uses for fuel or other purposes. His supply of the most suitable material is almost always limited and in any case his method of using it is practically certain to influence his permanent labor expenses. Nevertheless, especially in well-timbered regions, cutting is apt to be with but two considerations—the quickest clearing of land or the easiest immediate fulfillment of some need for tree products—and the passage of a few years brings realization that this early thoughtlessness must be paid for at a high price.

In the first place almost all timber of a commercial species has real and increasing value. If it is young, this value is increasing doubly because of growth. Varying greatly, of course, young timber in the Pacific Northwest very often adds from 500 to 1,000 board feet to the acre annually. This annual gain is taking place even if the timber has not reached merchantable size, being like coin deposited in a toy bank which does not open until full. And this is true whether the ultimate use may be for fuel, poles, or salable material like tie or saw timber.

Too much land is cleared of young growth, merely because such clearing is easy, which is of such low value for tilling or even pasture that its use for these purposes does not pay as well in the long run as would its use for growing timber, especially when the investment of clearing is considered. The resulting expanse of charred stumps and logs, producing little but ferns, is a small farm asset at best. The timber it would grow may eventually be a large asset. And the labor of clearing applied to a smaller tract of good land is sure to bring greater returns. An illustration is furnished by two tracts near the end of a recently completed railroad in western Washington. Twenty years ago a settler slashed a large area of presumably worthless sapling fir adjoining his tillable bottom land, set fire to it, piled and burned the remaining poles, "seeded down" a pasture, and enclosed it by an expensive cedar rail fence. The pasture, never useful except in early spring, grew up to ferns, and was finally abandoned. Even the fence was moved. The settler on the next claim left his part of the same sapling growth to grow and this year sold the timber alone for $1,000 to a tie mill which came into the neighborhood with the railroad. The moral of this does not apply to cutting alone, but argues equally for preventing fire in second growth.

It is also poor economy, if mature timber exists, to cut rapidly growing young timber for fuel because it is nearer the house or easier to cut. The former has become stationary in production, while the latter, if left, is earning money by growing in quantity and quality. If young timber must be used, and the land is not worth actually clearing for cultivation or pasture, it is usually far better to thin out the poorest trees, thus leaving the remainder stimulated to a more rapid growth, which will soon replace those removed, than to begin on the edge and take everything.

There is no reason why a certain poor-soiled timbered portion of the average claim should not be considered as a permanent wood lot, to be treated with the same interest and pride in making it produce the greatest quantity of forest products for sale or use that the owner accords his fields. With this point of view established and consequent study given the subject, it will also be easier to decide how large this portion should be. In many cases the result will be abandonment of the idea that all forest growth is an enemy, to be destroyed on general principles without calculating what actual profit there is in destruction.

Another point often overlooked in the Pacific Northwest, because of our local tendency to consider the forest only as something to struggle against, is the exactly opposite influence of properly placed tree growth upon sale values if the prospective buyer is from the East or from our own cities or tree-less regions. Such are attracted strongly by the grove-like effect of a few trees left around the house. Their desire for this is as strongly ingrained as the average local resident's desire for a completely free outlook to mark his victory over unfriendly nature. The appeal a place makes to a buyer as a pleasant home has frequently as important an influence on his decision as its purely practical merits.

His judgment of the latter, however, is also affected by his earlier environment. If he has lived where farming land is open, evidences of the labor of clearing are discouraging. The untouched forest, being totally beyond his capacity to estimate the labor its removal entails, repels him less than stumps, logs, desolate burnings and like detailed evidences of the work which lies before him. This is another reason why the clearing of clearly fertile land may be better business than the half-clearing of land perhaps best suited for forest growth anyway. Again, not fully realizing the plentifulness of forest products in the new locality, he may actually overestimate the value of an attractive piece of forest land showing evidence of the thoughtful care suggested in a preceding paragraph.