America's Greatest Crop

The American people have been told for a generation now that their timber supply soon will be all gone. A timber Iamine has been the subject of many articles, speeches and editorials. Most of us in this country, listening or reading of the decline in our timber supply, piCture the lumberman as ,a destructionist, hacking away at a great national resource.

The facts, according to the best studies available, recently brought together by the West Coast Lumber Bureau at Seattle, Washington, are that there is plenty of softwood timber available in America for all present needs; and that properly guarded from fire, present forest areas in the great western country will supply America's softwood needs for all time to come.

Revolutionary War. These states in more than 100 years cut 694 billion feet of timber or less than three-fourths of the amount now standing in the states west of the Rockies.

Fifty per cent of all the standing timber of the United States is on the Pacific Slope. Sixty-two per cent of this is in the two states of Washington and Oregon and sixtysix per cent of all the timber in these two states is Douglas fir.

Much difference of opinion has existed in the past about the amount of standing timber in the United States and especially in the western states. Until the last two or three years, studies of western tree growth have not been available. Through the work of the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment Station of the United States Forest Service, the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, the Forestry Schools of the Pacific Northwest, and some of the more progressive lumbering companies, studies are now completed to the point where facts can be given the American public. Some of these as compiled by the Bureau from these sources follow.

Timber now standing in all the states west of the Rocky Mountains totals approximately 1141 billion board feet and of this amount, 558 billion board feet is Douglas fir. This is more timber that will make lumber than all of the lumber which has been manufactured from the forests of New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Vermont since the est hotel, the Stevens, which was opened during May in Chicago,.they specified Doiiglas fir for all sash and frames. This firm had used Douglas fir for the same purpose in another building 17 years before and.rl'ere satisfied that it was not only superior to other rvoods for sash and frames butalso to other materials. The United States Forest Service in Bulletin No. 88 says about this wood:

Approximately nine billion feet of Douglas ,fir is now manufactured in Oregon and Washlngton each year. The School of Forestry, University of Washington, places the probable growth of Douglas fir in western Washington and Oregon as five billion board feet on mature stands and ifiree billion feet of second growth. Necessarily such figures are at best only approximations because this forest covers millions of acres and is growing all the time.

Trees grow faster and to a greater height in the Pacific Northrvest than in anv other section of America. Also they grow in thicker standi. A Douglas fir forest will yield from 40 thousand to 15O thousand board feet per acre while an acre in an eastern or central state forest will produce but from five to ten thousand board feet.

The Douglas fir is the most important building wood in the world. It is exported to more than 35 different countries each year where it is used for more different building and industrial purposes than any other wood known. Timbers 100 feet long and three feet square mav be obtained in Douglas fir and a large trade is now developing for this wood in the making of tiny battery separators for automobile batteries where a tough, stiff material one thirty-second of an inch in thickness, impervious to acids, is required. No other region in the world can produce the long timbers and few forests have wood as durable as Douglas fir.

"Douglas Fir may, perhaps, be considered as the 'most important of American woods + + * its rapid growth in the Pacific Coast forests, its comparatively wide distribution, and the great variety of uses to which its wood can be put, place it first. It is extensively used in the building trades; by the railroads in the form of ties, piling, car and bridge material and by many manufacturing industries in the country. As a structural timber it is not surpassed and probably it is most widely used and knorvn in this capacity.

"Douglas fir is manufactured into almost every form known to the sawmill operator. A list of such forms and uses would represent many industries and would include piling and poles, mine timbers, railway ties, bridge and trestle timbers, timbers for car construction; practically all kinds of lumber for houses. material for the furniture maker and boat builder; special products for cooperage, tanks, paving blocks, boxes and pulpwood; fuel and a long line of miscellaneous commodities.

"For house construction Douglas fir is manufactured into all forms of dimension stock and is used particularly for general building and construction purposes. Its strength l

-and comparative. lightness fit it for joists, floor beams; rafters, and other timbers which'muSt carry loads.

"The comparative hardness of the wood fits it for floor' ing and it meets a large dtimand. Douglas fir edge grain flooring is often considered superior to that made from any other American soft wood, and it is used on the Pacific Coast to the exclusion of nearly all other.

"Clear lumber, sawed flat grain, shows pleasing figures and the contrast between the spring and summer wood hes been considered as attractive as the grain of quarter-sawed oak. It takes stain well and by staining, the beauty of the grain may be more strongly brought out t * * Its chief use as finish is for door and window casings, bas'eboards and all kinds of panel work."

Although practically unknown ten years ago along the Atlantic Seaboard Douglas fir has come since into popular use in all the large eastern building centers. Ocean going vessels bring this and other woods from the virgin forests of the Pacific Northwest through the Panama Canal and large amounts are shipped in by rail. 'Water shipments of these West Coast woods have increased more than four thousand per cent to Atlantic Coast ports in six years.

Most of this heavy volume is for framing lumber and heavy structural timbers but a large part is for interior trim, finish, flooring and doors. Eastern buildbrs have learned from actual practice that Douglas fir has the same strength as longleaf yellow pine, for so many years the standard wood for heavy construction, and home builders have found out that it is a better rvood than is obtainable today in the pines for the more important finishing jobs.