Permits for this use are required for green material, but dead timber may be taken without a permit. Supervisors designate as free-use areas certain portions or all of any National Forest and settlers, miners, residents, and prospectors may cut and remove from such areas free of charge under Forest Service regulations any timber needed for their own use for firewood, fencing, buildings, mining, prospecting, or other domestic purposes.
Material cut under free-use regulations must not be removed from the cutting area until scaled or measured by a Forest officer. In some cases this requirement is waived when by it the needs of the users are met with greater dispatch and the cost of administration is thereby reduced. The free-use applicant is required to utilize the trees cut in accordance with local Forest Service practice and he is required to avoid unnecessary damage to young growth and standing timber.
TIMBER SETTLEMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE USE
When timber on National Forest land is cut, damaged, killed, or destroyed in connection with the enjoyment of a right-of-way or other special use, it is not necessary to advertise it for sale, but payment therefor is required at not less than the minimum rate established by the Secretary of Agriculture. Timber removed in this way is usually scaled, measured, or counted and the procedure is identical with that of a timber sale. But where timber is destroyed or where it is not worked up in measurable form or where the cutting is done in such a way that scaling is impracticable, settlement is required on the basis of an estimate.
Figure 71. Brush piles on a cut-over area before burning. Forest Service methods aim to clean up the forest after logging so that forest fires have less inflammable material to feed on. Bitterroot National Forest, Montana.
Figure 72. At a time of the year when there is least danger from fire the brush piles are burned. Missoula National Forest, Montana.
In 1912 a new branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad was built across a portion of the Lassen National Forest in California. The company was going to use some of the timber, but most of it was to be destroyed or disposed of in the easiest manner. Scaling was impossible, so the company paid for the timber—about $10,000—on the basis of a careful estimate made by the writer, then Forest Examiner.
The charge for all such timber is made on the basis of the current stumpage rates for timber of like quality and accessibility included in sales for all classes of material which have to be cut or destroyed and which are commonly salable on the Forest.