Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-07-26
Enormous.

That portion OF Washington living
west % the Cascade range is usually
understood as comprising the great
timber belt olthe Territory. Deductinc
the area covered by Puget Sound there
VIII remain little more than 9O.000
square miles 81 surface, the greater
portion o. which j. still clothed hv Il
dense growth oi timber, fir and cedar.
principally, with scattering districts
Yielding Spiacc. hcinlock, oak ami ash
Western Washington, bounded by
british Columhi@ on the north. the
Pacific ocean on the west. the Column
hla on the south and the Cascade noun
tains on the east, comprises an area
equal 10 or greater than the whole Of
penin>ular Michigan. Scattered over
this vast cNpanse are the interminahle
primeyal forests. which are destined to
represent the great staple product Of
the future State for a long series OF
generations to come. The mean of Il
great many estimates. made bv cypc-
rienccd lumhermen. places the total
amount Of timber now standing in
Western Washington ready for the
woodman's axe, at POO. 0O0, coo 600 feet
Now this is simply enormous and We
cannot form an adequate conception
of the amount OF lumber which such
forests are capable of producing.
The largest ship load of lumber that
ever left this coast, if we may believe
down Sound millmen, was about a
million feet. But if the whole of the
timber now standing in the above
mentioned boundaries-timber we
mean ready to he worked up into good
merchantable lumber-were actually
logged this year and cut into the va
rious forms of building material, in
the rough, it would require more than
DOC, 900 ships, each of one million feet
carrying capacity, to transport it to
the markets OF the world. Putting the
aggregate cutting capacity of the mills
of Puget Sound at 200,O00,O 900 feet per
year. they might be kept running ten
hours day and six days week, for
one thousand years before they could
exhaust the forests of our timber belt
now ready TO be utilized. These
conclusions are real and not i'm
aginary. Doubling Thomases have
only to go to the mills, get the statis-
tics and make the computations them
selves to he thoroughly convinced of
the truth of these statements. The
actual lumber product OF the Puget
Sound district alone, for the year 1888,
was 2S5,0O0,000 This may have been
an exceptionally active and prosperous
year in the numbering business, but
the figures will tend to show the stu
pendous character of this industry.
The value OF the lumber cut in the
whole Territory during the same year
was no less than $6,759.O0O. The fig
ures with which we have been dealing
will, perhaps, seem more reconcilable
when it is stated that many timber
land districts will yield from 10000 to
GO.O00 feet to the acre Old timber
cruisers well know that our fir trees
grow to the height of from $50 TO 800
feet, with a diameter OF from six to eight
feet, while cedar attains an altitude OF
from 100 to $50 feet, and II diameter
averaging three feet
Such, then, are some OF the
gratifying assurances as TO the reali-
ties of the timber resources OF our
Territory. No wonder that veteran
lumbermen from Maine and Michigan
stand amazed as they contemplate the
huge logs daily worked up at the lower
Sound mills; logs that will make a
stick a hundred feet long and four feet
square from end to end. Simply won
derful are the timber resources of our
Territory