TALES OF TALL TIMBER*B. CLIFFORD HENDRICKS

Longview, Washington

The order of the title is significant: not "tall tales" but "of TallTimber." In north west United States, if timber is tall, it is, mostprobably, Douglas fir. Not as tall or as big in circumference as thetrees of Sequoia Big Tree Parks of California, these firs do, however,reach heights of 180 to 250 feet and have diameters from five totwelve feet. Individual trees have unbelievably large lumber con-tent.

A JUMBO FIRIn 1944 the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company harvested their prize

lumber find, familiarly known as "The Big One." It was approxi-mately eleven feet in diameter at its base; had a total usable loglength of 196 feet and produced 71,542 board feet of lumber of about300 tons weight. It required an eleven car train to haul it from thetimber to the mill. This particular tree was 680 years old. Its startantedated the discovery of America by some 230 years. The totaltree height was probably near 225 feet since the upper thirty feetwas not used for lumber; too many knots etc. Compared with the"General Sherman," one of the much publicized trees of California’sbig trees, the California tree is thirty or forty feet higher, is twice aslarge in diameter and was about 4000 years old at the birth-date of"The Big One."

SYLVAN SURVIVALTrees that can live hundreds or thousands of years would appear

to have approached immortality. However, all fir seeds that sproutdo not become tall and profitable timber. As one writer1 puts it, "allover the United States the number one enemy of trees is insects anddisease. . . . The blister rust, the pine beetle, the hemlock hopper andother blights and bugs represent more danger than billowing smoketo the forests of the west."

EVERGREEN STATES

Though percentage loss due to fires is not as great as to "blightsand bugs" the publicity given to forest fires would place them first inthe esteem of the public. Washington^ state slogan, "Help keep usgreen" contributes to the public^s awareness of this threat to thestate’s chief resource. The summer of 1951 was considered that stated

* This is not an essay on lumbering but rather some random paragraphs of interest about trees.1 James Stevens of Seattle, Wash.

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worst drought in the last thirteen years but this water shortage madeheadlines, not in comments on crops losses, but rather in constantwarnings of fire hazard by reason of low humidity. At such timesloggers are permitted to work only on what are called "the hoot owlshift," that is from four to ten A.M. each morning. Whether it wasdue to incessant radio or news paper publicity, or the enforcement ofno rubbish fires or the restriction of logging to those very earlymorning hours, at the summer’s end the state supervisor of forestryconsidered that his field men and their helpers had been notably suc-cessful. They had kept the fired acreage down to a 35,400 acre loss outof the state’s total 12,500,000 acres. "They did this," he said, "Inspite of a summer with a below critical humidity (30 per cent) moredays and hours than any other year since records were kept."Some of the many causes of forest fires are listed as: "Fire bugs";

debris burners; smokers; railroads; campers; lightning, etc. "Firebugs," those individuals who set fires for the fun of it, lead with creditfor 40 per cent of the fires. Smokers are said to be responsible forstarting 17 per cent.

SNAG LOGGINGFires inflict heavy damage to lumber forests but the destruction is

not always total. In the early 1930’s a fire known as the TillamookBurn in Western Oregon killed timber on over 300,000 acres. Sincethat time logging of the snags, left by the fire, is estimated to havesalvaged 8,000,000,000 board feet of lumber. In doing this clean upsome 3,000,000 snags were removed and utilized. The snags thus putto use yielded, on an average, 2,670 board feet per tree stump.

"No FIRE, No FIR"The forest fire, in a sense, seems to be the midwife to the successful

propagation of the north west’s Douglas fir. The expert2 says, "Doug-las fir can not compete with western red cedar and western hemlockwhose ability to endure shade permits them to form an under-storywhich crowds out the less shade-enduring Douglas fir. ... So withoutfire or logging to interfere ... a region left for 600 or 700 years wouldhave its Douglas fir crop very greatly reduced." It might be said,"No fire, no fir."

BEAR BARKERSBut bugs, blight and fire are not the only hazards to a fir crop on

the mountain side. Report has it, "For some reason, that forestersand game biologists can’t explain, the Olympic Peninsula (bear) has

2 Botanical Survey of the Olympic Peninsula, George N. James, University of Washington, Seattle, page 30.

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recently developed a strong appetite for tree sap. . . . The bears seemto prefer Douglas Fir sap. After coming out of hibernation, in earlyspring, he claws the bark from young Douglas fir, hemlock spruceand cedar trees. Then he licks up the sweet sap as it oozes from thewood. Many of these trees, completely girdled, wither and die.

"Since 1945, on some . . . Douglas fir stands, bears have killed 100trees to every one killed by fire. In some areas you can trace earlyspring wanderings of a bear by the dead or dying trees he left in hiswake.

". . . In 1950, an aerial survey of timber . . . (in the Olympic Penin-sula, found) evidence of bear damage in 61,000 acres/7

Bruin’s sap guzzling has the Washington State authorities, as wellas the lumbermen, up in arms�and that in more than a figurativesense.

FARMING TREES

Conservation is a word in the vocabulary of most intelligent citi-zens of the United States; When applied to timber it is translated intothe phrase, "forest management," and the unit for such practice isknown as a "Tree Farm." This management involves, among otheractivities, treatment to control bug and blight damage, organizationto prevent and fight fires, cooperation with state game departments inthe depopulation of the bears of areas where they are seriously dam-aging the timber and directing all logging operations with an eye toboth successful removal of the marketable timber and the protectionof the younger growth that it may become a profitable lumber sourcein the years ahead. A recent United States Forest report says, "Onlyeight per cent of all timber cuttings on private lands can be classedas good; 27 per cent as fair and 64 per cent as poor or destructive."On the other hand it says, "Many lumber, pulp and paper companiesare doing a good job of forest management." In general, it considers"saw timber still is not being grown as fast as it is being used. . . .

(We are) not taking good enough care of (our) forestry resources."

HIGH MOUNTAINS RISE FROM PACIFIC^ FLOORThirty-five major sea mountains, from 3,500 to 12,400 feet high, rise from the

floor of the Gulf of Alaska, two oceanographers of the U. S. Navy ElectronicsLaboratory report.The mountains are divided into two area-wide groupings. One type is of

volcanic origin and the other was formed orogenically, that is when the earth’scrust folded. Drs. Henry W. Menard and Robert S. Dietz believe that the vol-canic mountains formed along a major rift in the crust. Most of the soundings onwhich their study is based were made by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Surveyand the Hydrographic Office of the U. S. Navy.