'Cle&rwater Timber Company Adopts Selective Logging Qrogram

At this time, when loggers, lumbermen, retailers and legislators are devoting thought to the sirbject of reforestation and conservation of the nation's timber supplies, attention is being directed to the activities of the Clearwater Timber Company of Lewistown, fdaho, which has inaugurated a selective logging plan governing the cutting of trees in its immense timber holdings.

Under this selective logging plan, trees will be gro!\rn and harvested as crops. In lieu of there being annual crop cycles however, the Clearwater Timber Company's plans provide for the cutting of timber in 3G35 year crop periods, involving 3-crop rotation in lOGyear cycles, and for centuries to come the company's timber lands will provide what may be termed a perpetual supply of high-grade western woods. Mr. Ben Bush, Chief Forester for the State of Idaho, has ta'ken deep interest in the plan which he declares goes far beyond state or federal regulations to conserve the national timber supply.

The Clearwater Timber Company's plan is also being watched with keen interest by leaders among the loggers and lumber manufacturers, and, proving successful, it is obvious that American forest administration and logging practices will undergo revolutionary changes. With the selective logging method general adopted, it is safe to assume that American forests will forever furnish sufficient high-grade timber to meet every requirement of industry and building, especially if the desired cooperation is forthcoming from federal and state governments.

Leaders in the industry will quickly recognize that the Clearwater Timber Company in placing its timber operations on a selective logging basis is making an experiment. of gigantic proportions, for the company is the first among America's big lumber manufacturers to apply the selective method to its logging operations. In fact, it has been termed a courageous undertaking, in that it contemplates century periods rather than the usual annual periods of industrial plant operation, with the success of a $9,00O,000 plant at stake. It is not possible to foresee what the decades to come will bring forth in timber crops, any more than a farmer can tell how his annual crops rvill mature. The officers of the Clearwater Timber Company do not know with a certainty whether the second and third timber crops will be ready for harvesting in accordance with the contemplated schedule. Futhermore, there are natural and economic hazards far beyond the ken of anyone to now discern. Among these are fire, tree disease and windfall, to say nothing of depressed economic conditions.

In spite of the fact that it is impossible to foresee what the future will develop, the officers of the company feel that the big odds are with them and that scientific forestry and man's ingenuity will enable the company to meet and solve such problems as may arise from time to time. Its 225,000 acres of timber are now being cut under very definite crop rotation plans. More than half of the timber in its holdings is white pine of the species Pinus Monticola, which is identical in every way with the famous Pinus Strobus of the east. Thus selective logging enables the Clearwater Timber Company to establish a perpetual source for genuine white pine.

Forest fires are a dread and ineradicable menace to the forest of the future. The sight ol "burning rnountains" is ar outesome thing ottd indelibly impresses u\on one that the Clearwater Timber Companfs crop-rotation plan embracing 100-year periods is indeed o courageous undertahin,g, and fire is but one ol the futzards that menace a Prograrn whose time scoPe is so far flung.

Briefly, the Clearwater selective logging plan limits cutting to trees of specific diameter, cutting only such species as can be marketed at a profit, clean-cutting of mature stands, fostering young growth by care in cutting, keeping the forest floor clean and destroying weed and insect life, which are responsible for tree diseases.

Some three months before actual cutting commences, a tract is cruised for the purpose of actually measuring trees and blazing those that are suitable for cutting. This cruising is first carried on in a test plot which is typical of the timber in adjacent areas. The trees in this plot are counted, their diameters measured and estimates made of the cutting size limit that should be established to make logging profitable. In accordance with the limits thus established, each tree to be felled is then blazed, once at breast height rvhere the mark may be seen even if deep snow covers the ground, and again below the stump line. The latter is for the purpose of enabling a check on the cutting to determine whether or not trees other 'than those blazed are being felled.

It is estimated that the cruising-and-marking-cost is approximately 5 cents per thousand board feet. As the work becomes better organized, it is expected that this cost will be reduced to 3 cents. Nevertheless, as the tract contains approximately a quarter-million acres, the immensity of the job and its expense are apparent.

The benefits of selective logging are impressively apparent even to the layman. Tracts where the method has been applied remain thickly g'rown with tall, straight pines, ranging up to 17 inches in diameter. The picture is in de' cided contrast to the old method which leaves onlv a

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