The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1909-04-08
TIM
bER INDUSTRY
WASHINGTON HAS STANDING
TIMBER SUFFICIENT TO BUILD
HOUSES.

to shelter one-third of the population
of the United States, or furnish ties
for 1,S93,939 miles of railway track
or construct plank road three inches
thick and 500 feet wide twice around
the world. Cut into lumber these
trees would load 100000 45-foot
cars of 10000 feet capacity, equal to
IS 227 miles of trains, or one train
reaching three and half times
around the globe at the equator.
This timber Is contained in areas
aggregating $4,000 square miles on
the eastern and western sides of the
Cascades, and expert cruisers say
that the density is not equaled any
where on the American continent.
The hewing of yellow fir log, so
inches square and 80 feet in length
at Buckley recently excited considera-
BILE comment, but the annals of the
lumber industry in Washington con-
tains many more remarkable Incl
dents
When President Taft was in the
Panama Canal zone recently his at
tention was called to several spud
sticks in the big dredges, and he
asked where it was possible to obtain
such timbers. These sticks, each SO
| by 40 inches and more than 80 feet
in length, the superintendent told
him, were shipped from Bellingham
last summer
The recent challenge of Portland
for the distinction of producing the
biggest timbers sawed in the world
has been answered from many parts
of Washington. Portland mills saw
ed two sticks SO inches square and
60 feet in length. Bellingham came
back with a sawed spud stick for a
dredge 40 inches square and 80 feet
in length, and boosted of having fur
nished timbers 125 feet in length
There is a cedar tree in Snohomish
county which is declared to be the
largest tree on the continent, exceed
ing in girth by three inches the larg-
est of the trees of the famous red
wood forest of California. This tree
measurers 104 feet inches in cir
conference, and it is more than $50
| feet to the first limb, which is five
feet in diameter.
On the west slope of the Cascade
mountains a giant red fir was recent
ly blown across the tracks of the
Northern Pacific railroad. Traffic
was blocked by the monster log,
which measured eight feet in thick
ness.
| There was no saw within miles
that was big enough to cut the timber,
and as the railroad company could not
weight the five days required to saw
section from the huge log dynamite
was placed in deeply bored holes, and
the aged tree blow to splinters. 1t
was easier to repair ten rods Of road
bed than to saw through eight feet
of solid red fir.
In Clallam county, according to Of
fetal measurements, the timbered
area runs 20,00O,000 feet to the
square mile. The stand on smaller
ares is even more dense. One acre re-
Gently showed 500 900 feet of stand
ing timber.
A 40-acre tract in Clallam county
contains 100000 feet of timber.
There are 8,50O,000 feet of fir, $780,
900 feet of spruce and 10000 of
hemlock The quarter section of
which the tract is part contains 49,
100000 feet of fir, 100000 of
spruce and 100000 of .hemlock
A Pacific county mill cut 100000
feet from a little less than two acres.
The logs averaged from 10000 to a.
900 feet each.
The prize winner, according to Spo-
kane mill men should be log sent
from Puget Sound to San Francisco.
This was so big that no mill could saw
it, the trimming having to be done by
hand with axes. The log measured
"a inches by "a inches and was 104
feet long when hewn into shape. The
largest log ever cut in any mill in
Washington was u inches in dame
ter at the smaller end.
The remarkable feat OF erecting
14-room house from the lumber of
single yellow fir was recently accom-
plished at Elma. There was nearly
$4,000 feet of lumber in the logs of
the tree Six logs. % feet in length
the largest seven feet in diameter at
the smallest nd, were made from the
| fir. The measurement of the stump
side the bark was exactly nine feet.
The trunk was straight and for 100
feet not limb appeared. The total
length of the tree was more than 800
feet The lumber was worth nearly
$1,000. The corporation owning the
land growing this tree has hundreds
of such frs, many of them too big to
be handled by the equipment now pos
sessed by Washington sawmills.
Not far from Snolqualmie Falls a
giant tree was blown across preci-.