"Th. Government Has Much Hoarded Over-Age Timber Literally Rotting On lts Roots"

When the announcement reached the lumber and logging people of the Pacific Northwest that a part of the huge subsidy fund voted by Congress. for Wyatt's housing program would be spent for new roads to open up avenues of production to government and other forests not now oPen, it was met with much interesting comment.

The proposition to open up government stands of timber that have been.carefully hoarded throughout the war crisis while all private timber owners were urged to produce to a maximum for the sake of patriotism, was approved, but the subsidy method criticized. The West Coast Lumbermen's Association issued a statement out of Seattle that referred to the wisdom of having the government open up "its hoarded stands of over-age timber," which should have been cut long since. It is interesting to note that while private owners were wasting their future forests by cutting immature trees, in the great government timber holdings in the West there is a mighty accumulation of old timber that should properly have been cut long ago.

E. T. Clark, Secretary-Manager of the Pacific Northwest Loggers Association, also made an announcement, in which he declared that the government has more than two hundred billion feet of commercial saw timber in the Douglas Fir region, enough to build twenty million homes, and that "some of it is literally rotting on its roots." Mr. Clark said that the building of roads is not all that must be done to develop new timber areas, and continued: "Camps must be constructed, equipment has to be acquired and moved in, and a crew organized, among a thousand other things' In view of this it is obvious that the first need in the new program is to make the most of the organized production that is already in the woods and needs no more than simple access to a few areas of the government's more than 200,000,000,000 board feet of commercial saw timber in the Douglas Fir region. This is enough timber to build 20 million homes, or more than half the existing dwellings in the United States. Some of it is literally rotting on its roots. Much more that was hoarded even when lumber and plywood were a dire war need can be opened now rvithout overcutting. Log producers that are now running short of sturnpage need only a fighting chance at this hoarded timber to get out more building material'" i\tr. Clark rejected the government's figures on overcutting, declaring that they represent "a pessimistic view thai has often been used to cover up the excessive withholding of over-ripe government timber from construction uses and to promote more government control of industry." He likewise called attention to the fact that Congress has already appropriated rnoney for roads to out-of-the-way timber in the National forests; "Effective use of this normal appropriation should be made before dipping into subsidies," he urged. "Whatever the emergency, industry cannot help but see subsidies- as its first step toward nationalization of private enterprise."

H. V. Simpson, Executive Vice President of the West Coast Lumbermen's Association decried the use of subsidy money to do thirigs that could be done So much better without them, anJ declared that 'lthe recovery of normal incentives and of normal freedom to produce form the one sure and lasting road to incr€ased West Coast production of lumber for home building. Public subsidies are no substitute for normal private profits," he continued., "and permanent improvement in West Coast lumber production cannot be hoped for while profits for a large number of mills continue to be held at the vanishing point by the long arm of the Federal Government."

Clcrence G. Corkrcrn

Clarence G. (Jeff) Corkran; 76, retfted' lumberman of Sacramento, passed away in.a hospital May 9 after a long illness.

He was sales repres'entative for many years for the Owen-Oregon Lumber Co.. (now Medford Corporation), with headquarters in Sacramento, and later was the representative of MacDonald & Harrington, Ltd. in the Sacramento Valley for five years. He was a native of Maryland.

Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Blanche S. Corktan, 817 H. Street, Sacramento, and a granddaughter, Betty Jean Francis.

Funeral services were held in Sacramento May 11.