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Show Timber Cutting Hits Peak hi Wasatch Forest Boards, sawlogs, mine props and poles are daily pouring out of the timbered regions of the Wasatch National Forest by dozens doz-ens of truck loads as woods production pro-duction of scarce lumber materials mate-rials reached its peak of the season, sea-son, officials tof the Wasatch report. re-port. With many millions board feet of timber under contract of sale in the Provo river and Bear river regions, output this season is expected to reach an all-time high in those areas. Portable sawmills are humming in a score of locations as energetic ener-getic producers are striving their utmost to put out the boards and other 'forest products to alleviate the shortages fin these materials. mate-rials. Boards of any type or description descrip-tion are the primary demand. Anything that is square on four sides and reasonably sound and strong finds a ready market. Native Na-tive (lumber such as comes from Utah forests, while not of high quality, finds extensive use in home and other construction work. Anyhow there is no native na-tive lodgepole pine, spruce, or fir lumber going begging anywhere any-where these days, sawmill operators op-erators report. Lumber production produc-tion on the Wasatch Forest is expected to be somewhere between be-tween 7 and 10 million feet this season. Spring canyon, Soapstone and Broadhead are prinfcjpal operating oper-ating areas on the Provo river, while on the north slope of the High Uintahs, the West Fork of Bear river, Mill creek MfcKen-zie MfcKen-zie creek, jand Smith's Fork have the most active operations. But, forest service administrators administra-tors say, the areas of accessible timber are now saturated with operators Vand new applicants are being refused sale of timber. First because the forest service has insufficient help to handle any more cruising, scaling and administration work that is necessary nec-essary under requirements governing gov-erning sale of government timber, tim-ber, and secondly, timber .cutting must be controlled under a sustained sus-tained yield plan to provide stumpage and woods employment employ-ment continuously on a ' stable basis, in the years ahead. It would be mighty easy to over cut now for a while when the demand is acute, forest officials of-ficials say, and then find that the local lumbering industry would fall into a slump when available avail-able timber supplies are exhausted. exhaust-ed. Lumbering industry slumps affect prosperity of communities communi-ties that depend on seasonal or full time employment upon virgin vir-gin timber supplies from the forest for-est regions. It is far healthier, administrators say, to spread the sawlog cut evenly over a period pe-riod of years and maintain a stable (economy than to over cut during high prices and shortages and later suffer a relapse from shortage in stumpage. Since 25 per cent of national forest stumpage receipts are returned to counties in lieu of taxes, and an additional 10 per cent for roads and trails, sales of national nation-al forest timber have an important impor-tant effect on local communities and counties. Utah, forested regions have come into their own during the post war lumber shortage era and production this year Ss expected ex-pected to exceed all previous records. Lumber men, too, are learning to put out a better i product to compete with the expensive ex-pensive footage annually ship-1 ped in from the northwest lumber lum-ber centers. I |