Show A TE rl hafl aai P 40 ASTERY by the forest service of one of the greatest practical for est problems ever undertaken by any government is advancing apace briefly stated that lem Is to develop to its highest usefulness a total area of acres of wild lands mainly mountain wilderness but closely related to the welfare ot of the entire country from an administrative stand point the most striking fact of the year was the remarkable in crease which took place in the actual use of the forests by the public this increase is partly brought out by the following statement per cent inar increase age in area 11 increase in number of timber sales increase in amount of it timber in her C cut ut increase in number of free timber permits 76 inc increase rease in number of special use permits 67 increase in number of grazing permits 11 regarded as property the national forests justify liberal expenditures for their protection and improve ment merit at 2 per thousand feet stumpage the merchant arble timber alone forms just as it stands an asset worth orth something like while the very mod erate grazing charge yielded the government last year an n income of nearly 1000 1 it Is a safe prediction that within 20 years the forests will bring in from the ale of timber alone an annual net income of as many millions of dollars an average wood production of 30 cubic feet to the acre of commercial forest is a moderate estimate of hat will ultimately be obtained under management one hundred million acres of such forest would allow to be cut each year over 3 cubic feet or from 20 to 25 board feet without diminution of the supply this is but a traction fraction of the ever preferred doll to large sales and large sale I 1 which would tend to expose the consumer to monopoly prices are uniformly re fused requests made mad e by prospective r spec tive bidders for the advertis 71 ing of over 2 J 41 worth of timber were refused daring the e of past year one result of A this policy has been to bring about a decline q in the average price of the stumpage sold in general high er prices are ob tai tamable phrot gh large than through small ilk sales the most rt important con 4 in 04 MR making sales of 41 V timber however 4 is not the price obtainable but the serving of the public inter K K est obviously to sell timber in quantity at I 1 ess Q country s con r of wood at the present time but at the stumpage prices which already ob tain in the older and better set tied parts of the united states its sale bale would bring the government 44 4 e each ch year from SO to aa were it wise to do so the receipts from the forests could very easily be bija DOG OY 0 TW 71 W zd made not only to keep pace with the expenditures but to return to the government the entire cost of maintaining the forest service private owners of grazing lands in the same regions ask and receive a very much higher return per head of stock for the use of their lands than does the forest service the national forests which contain one fifth of the standing merchantable t timber I 1 I 1 in n the coun try furnished last year about 13 1 3 per cent of its lumber cut resulting in the removal from the forests of about one eigl elgi th of one per cent of the stand of this corn com ively insignificant cut one fourth was not sold bit b it was as given to home builders and communities yet the sales brought in nearly it if the chief object of the forests were to produce immediate inc income 0 me the amount received could be multiplied several times there Is actually going to waste in the woods each rear year through decay and other natural causes from five to ten times the amount of timber now being cut with an adequate force of forest officers available much of this waste might be prevented timber sales dvolve lor for marking scaling and supervising the work a cost to the government of about 30 cents per thousand ceet feet and the amount sold cannot be much increased without an increased appropriation there Is also the waste of the productive power of the forest which can not be brought into full play until the mature trees have been removed to make room for a growing crop host most of the forest timber is beyond reach unless heavy outlays are made to obtain means of tion such timber can be sold only to those who corn com mand large resources of capital and even then only at a relatively low price on the other hand where the demand for the timber is good and competition tor for its pur purchase chae fairly brisk it is generally necess necessary Etry to go slowly because of the certainty of future requirements in short the question of the timber that can safely or wisely be sold Is a local one the fact that timber Is rotting in the woods in distant regions will not help immunities omm unities which find their home exhausted for these reasons the sales of national forest timber ire carefully guarded the amount of national forest timber sold during the year was slightly over feet or not much over one third the amount sold the previous year the falling off was directly due to the to make large sales under such sales the ac so ual cutting is allowed to extend over several years the amount of timber cut and paid tor for during the year how ever more than doubled the cut of the previous year nith a total of not quite feet the receipts from timber sales were about as against not bulte for the previous year in t there v BBS as cut under tree free use over fe of timber valued at about the timber lands of the west outside of the national forests are mainly in strong hands were the national forest timber offered on the market to every purchaser the main scene of western lumbering would be quickly shifted to the public holdings it Is sometimes asserted that the creation of the national forests has played into the hands of monopolists of timber lands it was on the thi contrary an eleventh hour halting of the process which would hae made the hold obtainable by such a monopoly complete to permit the owners of standi standup ig timber to preserve their stumpage intact while supply ing their business needs through i from the gov eminent would simply invite the tle hoarding of private timber for further high prices wh ie le the public supply would mould be disposed of without an adequate return under the timber sale bale pol cy now in force both the present and the future interests of the consumer are borre in mind we tie reeds f tl ose dependent dep endert on the forests are P el I 1 p to the limit set by the power of the legion to man maii tain a steady I 1 it is recognized also that the removal of mature tl ti ber to make room for i i new and growing crop is the only way by which the forests can be put to work small sales are how than the mar ket price through any other method eluded 3 S miles of trails 3 miles ot of telephone line miles of wagon road 40 miles of fire line bridges cabins and barns and miles of pasture and drift fences in addition to the sum provided by the special improvement fund over from the general fund of the service was turned from current expenses to defray the cost of this m ork but much of the work planned and urgently needed could not be car ried out because there was nothing with which to pay for it the fire record also alfa deserves mention since the fiscal ear vear ends in the midst of the fire season reports of fires are made not for fiscal but for calendar years during the calendar year 1907 the loss of 0 timber by fire was less than half that of the previous year though this in turn was less than ever before about one seventh of one per cent of the forests was burned over in 1907 with a damage so slight as to be practically negligible the ratio of loss to the value of the timber protected allowing that it is worth 2 per thousand feet was about as tour four cents to 1 1000 the entire cost of national tor for est administration was equivalent to a charge of one third of one per cent on the value of the timber pro surely a cheap insurance rate this immunity from fires must be ascribed chiefly to the results of consistent efforts made in the past to in form the public a to the danger of carelessness in the use of flies in the forest and to the recognized feces eity sity of vigilance to put out small fires with reason ible able co aeration pe ration on the part of the public to prevent fires and reasonable provision for discovering and fight ing fires when they start really heavy losses are en preventable the widespread forest fires of recent iro the are a case in point relatively I 1 atle damage was done to the national forests at a time when the air was thick with moke smoke from the atla atlantic itic to the pacific coast and most of the national forest foret loss which was 9 offered amounting to peri perl aps 1 1000 was due solely to the tact fact tl at tl it e area to be protected is so vastly out of proportion to the resources at the disposal of the for et ce s ot of lands under the act of J me 11 1906 led to the listing tor for settlement of about acres of national forest laid lai d 4 I 1 1 A A T i lf sass w W pt i s i kox AO A O rf W 7 il s fb IV A V k raya rw ya V W tofiga GO fiGA u aim than compel tive bids would simply work to the profit of specially fa jr bored bals but care 97 must be taken at the same it time me both to prevent local 21 c 0 n sumers 1 from being overcharged by those who buy stumpage from the government and to prevent the exaction of a monopoly price for gk 41 X stumpage by J the govern ment the work IL ak completed dur ing the year in an enlarged timber supply B r 0 a d c a s t sowings were made during the year in 27 forests in eight states to test by ex pertinent perl ment the extent to which defor R e foresting of large areas of the nation al at forest Is 1 called for PH bartly in the interest of the water sup ply of the west but also though less pressingly tor for the sake of es tation may be hoped for W anzra LM 14 rf r f through the use of this method the national forest nurseries in ln which are being grown stock tor for transplanting were enlarged and about trees were planted over 2 trees will be ready tor for planting in 1909 the beneficial results of regulated grazing shown in a decided betterment of much of the national forest range merde it possible to increase the allotment of stock tock on a number of the older forests at the same time investigations in range improvement through re seeding new methods of handling stock the eradication of poisonous plants and the destruction of prairie dogs bro brought ight important progress toward still better future use of the forests by stockmen the development of water ing places is another means th thit it Is being A sued to the same end while the killing of predatory wild ani ant mils by forest service hunters saved saied the stockmen loss s probably greate nthan the entire amount paid in grazing fees this amount was over through the enforcement of quarantine regulations and the dis die trib ution of blackleg vaccine other losses from disease were prevented I 1 ahro agh co ipe ration with private owners ina estigo eions in forest management ai d forest planting were continued it was possible to make field examinations of only about one fifth of the total acreage for alich advice concerning forest management was sought ev ery tract of land on the advice of the service Is applied becomes a valuable experiment in practical for estry the total area tor for which examinations have been since cooperation was first offered is nearly 11 GENERAL ft W acres and on more than fourths of this some torm form of forestry Is now in actual practice the studies in wood preserve preservation aaion and in the strength and nd physical properties of different kinds of wood maintained the position ot of the forest service as leader toward more economical use of wood material special attention was given to working out practicable methods for treating farm timbers in small quantities studies in wood pulp in making aking showed that a merchantable pulp can be made from 16 15 woods not commonly along many other lines also data were gathered looking to better knowledge and control ot of our forests and better use of their products at the same time the work of bringing to the attention ot of the public the knowledge for the use of 0 the public was vigorously prosecuted J t k A n i V 94 r A r ar |