Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1900-02-02
WASTEFUL METHODS.
SOME SUGGESTIONS REGARD
ING OUR FINE TIMBER.
George II. Emerson. the Mill Man, Calls At
tention to the Extravasant Methods of Our
Logging Industry-Some Of the Mistakes
Pointed Out and Suggestions for Reform.
American Lumberman,

American Lumberman.
Ii has been a busy year with the
mills on Gray's Harbor. Coastwise
foreign and Eastern markets have eacl
demanded the entire output. Mark
cts, therefore, have been we'll divided
The Northwestern Lumber Company
and Gray's Harbor Commercial Com.
pany have shipped the greater portion
of their product East by rail, the E.
X. Wood Lumber Company to the
Sandwich Islands, and the other mills
have been busy with coastwise and
foreign orders.
While the demand away from home
has been brisk there has also been
large local sales for the building oi
our harbor cities. Some of the mills
have operated day and night; others
have been content with ten or twelve
hours day.
With the opening of the coming
year there will be nine foreign shipping
lumber mills in operation; also large
number of shingle mills. The de-
mand for spruce, both for coastwise
and Eastern trade, has obliged mills
to reserve all the better grades to fill
orders for bevel siding and finish.
Shipbuilding material has been re-
quired for local eoastwise and Eastern
construction. Six vessels have been
built on the harbor and the North
western Lumber Company has fur
nished material for an equal number
TO be built in San Francisco, while
shipments from all mills of this class
of product have been large, both
coastwise and East.
Gray's Harbor is now consuming in
the manufacture of lumber, shingles,
baskets, boxes and barrels fully l,0OO,-
600 feet of logs day, and from the
lands draining into Gray's Harbor
there is more than 100000 feet of
logs cut each day for Puget Sound
delivery and for delivery to the mills
along the line of the Northern Pacific
railroad and its branches.
Under these conditions the logging
industry is both large and active and
wages in the weeds have been high
during the past season. with every
prospect of being equally high during
the season to come. During the
months of November, December and
January there is little logging done,
owing to the excessively wet weather
and extremely short days, but with
the first of February the woods will
again be subject to the encroachments
of the loggers and nearly two town.
ships OF timber on Gray's Harbor
slopes will fall to meet their require.
ments during the year 1900.
When it is considered that the
present demand for the products OF
Washington forests requires the cut
ting of about eight townships each
year the necessity for economy is ap-
parent and the fearful waste OF our
forests that to-day exists becomes a
crime demanding attention and the
lumbermen should be held account
able. There is no way our lumber
papers could better serve the interests
of the country and of the lumbermen
than to force upon their considera-
ton this one feature of our business.
To illustrate that to which refer,
one needs but to visit any old chop
ping. In many OF these he will find
stumps ten, twelve or even sixteen
feet in height, containing the choicest
part of the tree. He will also find
tops $50 feet in length, oftentimes 80
to 40 inches in diameter at the point
where the last log was removed and
with long stretches OF fine timber be-
tween limbs. He will find logs left in
the woods because of small amount
OF rot in one end, and many trees lsft
standing that will become the prey OF
the wind or fires that follow the cut
ting, yet those trees. although con-
tanning some imperfection as shown
by concks or burills, contain thousands
of feet of excellent timber. He will
also find that all hemlock has been
left, because Of the lack of proper ap-
pliances to take it to the mills, and
among the older cuttings dead cedar,
charred by each successive fire, but
still awaiting coming demand that
shall call for the remnant. The ex.
travagance of the logger goes still
farther. Instead of leaving the young
trees to occupy the ground and be-
come forest of future generations he
seldom is satisfied to abandon an old
chopping without first firing it. there
by killing the young growth, destroy
ing all seed and hemlock, exposing to
the wind rejected fir. destroying the
soil and making OF the old chopping a
desert waste.
II the lumbermen of the Coast
would notice the result OF such ex.
travagance in the East it would hardly
aeem possible they should continue
their present methods in the West
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