of Sugar Pine Protests Misstatement About Availabfe Supply

Western Pine Association

Portland, Oregon, November 9, 1937, Editor, The California Lumber Merchant.

For your information, we are attaching hereto a copy of a letter sent out today by C. S. Martin, Forest Engineer for the Western Pine Association, to Hon. Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C.

This letter has been prepared to call attention to misleading and incorrect statements relative to the available supply of sugar pine, contained in a press memorandum released by the Department of the fnterior on July 19. The release incorrectly assumed that western pine lumbermen left their cutover lands in a desolate and despoiled condition, particularly as it applied to the sugar pine forests of California.

You are at liberty to make use of this information as you see fit.

Very truly yours, A. K. Roberts.

. November 9, 1937.

The Hon. Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

On July 19 a press memorandum was released by your department which contained many misleading and incorrect statements relative to the available supply of sugar pine and assuming that western pine lumbermen left their cutover lands in a desolate and despoiled condition.

I am sure that you have no wish to sanction the misstatement of facts or to create in the public mind an erroneous conception of the part western pine industry is taking in conserving and protecting its timber resources. Therefore, I am taking the liberty of quoting certain statements contained in this press release and following such quotations, presenting factual data taken from Government surveys and our own records, all of which are open to check and investigation by any competent and impartial authoritv.

Paragraph l-"dwindling supply of rare, giant sugar pine."

Paragraph 3-"Sugar pine trees which are rare and becoming rarer."

Paragraph lF'Because of its limited distribution and fine, clean, white lumber that the sugar pine supplies, it is definitely an exhaustible resource.',

The sugar pine, a genuine white pine, is found through- out the Sierra in California and runs well into the Cascades in Southern Oregon. According to the latest figures there now exists a merchantable stand of mature sugar pine amounting to more than 39 billion board feet. Based on the average cut of this species for the past ten years this supply of mature timber would last for 198 years, totally disregarding growth.

Merchantable sugar pine may be grown in from 8O to 100 years and as our operators generally leave all young sugar pine trees below 24 inches in diameter, the species as a whole is not only on a sustaining basis but less volume is being cut than is grorving each year.

The supply is therefore not "dwindling;" it is not "r4re," being found over millions of acres; and it is not "an exhaustible resource" as it is now being handled on both private and Government lands.

True conservation should mean the wisest use of our natural resources for the long-time benefit of the greatest number of our people. If we cannot have a stable and widespread demand for the products of our forests we cannot afford the cost of perpetuating them, either public or private. Therefore, when responsible public officials issue statements leading the public to believe that there is likely to be a diminishing supply of a particular timber product it does definite harm in discouraging the use of that prod-

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uct and incidentally retards the development of forestry on privately owned lands.

Paragraph 6-"owned by a private lumber company which was preparing to turn the two and three century old trees into lumber and leave only the desolate shearedoff stumps and broken tops as a memorial to despoiled nature."

The truth is that there is much more land in the sugar pine belt coming back to a healthy young growth of pine trees than is being devastated. Fire is the principal devastator at present, not logging, and the western lumber industry is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in protecting its timber and cut-over lands from fire. It is true that the rapid advance of infection with blister rust threatens destruction of the coming generation of five needled pines, which include the sugar pine. But this can be controlled by adequate and sustained action by the Federal Government such a.s is being taken in preventing the spread of the Mediterranean fruit fly and the gypsy moth. The mature trees, being more resistant to blister rust, can be cut before they are destroyed, but efforts to protect and preserve the crop of young trees which will make up the future stand will be in vain unless the Government completes its control program within the next few years.

A corn or wheat field is not beautiful just after harvest, nor is a timber stand after logging, but as the new crop of young trees develops the land takes on a new beauty-and unless the mature and over-mature crop of timber is harvested and used the land 'produces nothing, as decay balances growth. There is no beauty in beetle killed, rotting snags and wind falls.

In the particular instance referred to in your release less than five per cent of the lands are being cut clean, and this only around landings. On the greater part of the cut-over lands several thousand board feet of mixed species and hundreds of small trees are being left on each acre.

It should not be necessary to make misleading generalized statements to prove a particular point, especially when to do so damages an industry which has voluntarily adopted and is conscientiously carrying out a nation-wide program of forest conservation, one which, if given Government and public cooperation, would insure to our country a continuous supply of forest products, protection for our water-sheds and supplies of water for irrigation. If industry could only be given a little re'cognition for its good works instead of general condemnation for its faults we would progress much more rapidly toward a sound economy.

I enclose a booklet showing some of the good works. Very sincerely yours,

C. S. Martin, Forest Engineer.

Los Angeles Ranks Second in Building

Los Angeles is in second place among the cities in the United States in building for the first ten months of. 1937 with a total of $55,8&,147. San Francisco ranked seventh with $18,162,124, San Diego was nineteenth with $7,330,579, and Oakland was twentieth with $7,256,302. New York with in first place with a total of $211,65Q8O2.

Building permit valuations for the twenty leading cities for the first ten months of the current year and cornparative figures for 1936 as compiled by Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.. follows: