Trees can only be reproduced on soil suitable for that purpose and for no other. The timber crop is the process of years of growth, and annual taxes, perpetual fire risk and the desire to use the land for more frequent crops are the deterrent features of reforestation. We only need to look abroad, where common lumber brings the price of mahogany in this country, to realize that an article to be saved and reproduced must have commercial value.
Your great centers of population in the East and Middle West are today beginning to realize that happiness, health and long life of the people will be your greatest commercial asset. The country is becoming aroused to the needs of forest, lake, stream and fresh air to build up American citizenship. We in the West, like the pioneers who have worked their way across the American continent, do not appreciate our own resources until we realize the vast sums being appropriated in your dense centers of population to reinstate in a measure the surroundings in which we revel.
Population, transportation and ability to pay are all determining factors in our national development. It takes something more than philanthropy to meet a payroll or pay the grocer, and too little heed is given the trials and privations of our pioneer life in some of our theories.
We lumbermen of the West Coast, where transportation charge alone equals more than the original cost of our lumber to you, are sometimes rebuffed in our efforts to conserve, where of necessity the waste is large.
We are not slow in the West and South in developing the use of wooden block paving, in establishing creosote plants to prolong the life of our product, but in our recent attempts to get the consumer to use odd and short lengths to prevent a waste in our mills of 2 per cent. of our planing mill product, we are balked in our efforts and forced to the burners with a lot of trimmings.
I have just read the following from an address delivered by Joseph B. Knapp, assistant district forester in the United States Service, which bears out my contention:
“Coast lumbermen a few years ago unitedly endeavored to introduce the use of flooring, ceiling, finish and other planing mill products in multiples of one foot from three feet upward. At this time the United States Forest Service made an investigation of the waste due to manufacturing planing mill products in multiples of two feet. We found this waste to be over two per cent. of the material run through planing mills in Oregon and Washington, or the equivalent of the yearly growth of wood on approximately 30,000 acres of good timberland. The consuming trade refused to accept odd lengths and after a conscientious attempt on the part of lumber manufacturers, it was found necessary to discontinue the manufacture of odd lengths over ten feet. It is therefore seen that the useless waste in the manufacture of lumber can not always be attributed to the lack of a desire on the part of the lumber manufacturer to introduce economical practices. It remains for the ultimate consumer of our timber products to determine in what form these products shall be supplied to him, and therefore conservative lumbering and close manufacture are dependent as much upon the layman as upon the manufacturer.”
Our British Columbia neighbors are keenly alive to their timber interests and their forest service is alive to the situation. Mr. Benedict, assistant forester of British Columbia, in a recent address stated that in British Columbia, on a very conservative estimate, after eliminating waste land, rocky mountain slopes and peaks, they had 65,000,000 acres capable of producing merchantable timber and valueless for any other purpose.
“The productiveness of this land in timber will vary from 1,000 hard feet per acre per year in particularly favorable localities on the coast to 25 or 50 board feet per acre per year on the mountains of the interior,” he says, “but I am confident that the average yield will amount to 100 board feet at least. This gives an annual production of 6,500,000,000 feet.
“Allowing for a temporary overproduction of lumber brought on by the desire of the holders of timber limits to realize on their investment as quickly as possible, it will be seen that the stand of mature timber will last from fifty to seventy-five years. At the end of seventy-five years, when this mature timber is cut, the present stand of second growth timber will have matured so that the annual production can be maintained perpetually at 6,500,000,000 feet. All this provided the present stand of mature timber is preserved from destruction by fire and likewise that the second growth is able to escape fire and grow to maturity.