"You are right," he said, in reply to a statement made by Dale. "The lumber industry of our country is rapidly centering around Washington, Oregon, and northern California. The output of Maine, Michigan, and other timber sections will, of course, be considerable for years to come, but that output is as nothing compared to what we can produce in the Far West. According to the reports of our department, Washington, Oregon, and California contain about one-third of all the timber still standing in our country. Oregon, alone, to which you are bound, contains more timber than all the New England States and New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania combined."
"Have you ever estimated the total quantity of uncut timber—I mean, with any exactness?" asked Owen. "Of course you had to do it in the rough, to make comparisons."
"We have got fairly close to it, and the figures would astonish you. For Washington, Oregon, and California, we calculate the uncut trees will yield six hundred billion feet of lumber."
"Well! well!" cried Dale. "But it will take some cutting to get that down."
"You are right, yet you will be surprised to see the inroads that have been made at different points. Lumbering there, you must remember, is advancing on a large scale, and a stick that would be thought of fair size in Maine, is discarded in Oregon as too small. I know one lumberman who won't cut a tree on his section that isn't at least twenty inches in diameter."
"They'd better save some trees," said Owen. "If they don't, they'll suffer one of these days, just as Maine is beginning to suffer."
"The government has already taken hold of the matter, and, in the three States I have named, Uncle Sam has set aside over thirty-two thousand square miles of forest lands which nobody can touch. These parks, as they are called, are filled with pines, fir, hemlock, redwood, and other trees."
"Are there many small lumbermen out there?" asked Dale.
"There used to be, years ago. A man would come out here, take up a homestead claim, and perhaps buy up some additional claims near by, and then start in to cut trees on his own account, getting them to market as best he could, and taking whatever the wholesale lumber companies cared to pay him. But all that is changed now. Business is done on a big scale, and the companies have millions of dollars invested. One company alone gets out half a million feet of logs every day."
"Such an amount would be worth a small fortune in Maine!" put in Owen. "What a plant that must be!"