The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1912-09-19
LARGE TIMBER SALE
!. BY FOREST SERVICE

Chief Forester Graves is on his wav
to San Francisco to make final ar
rangements under which a California
lumber company will purchase 800
million feet of timber on the Sierra
national forest. The timber has al
ready been awarded after public ad-
vertisement, to the highest bidder, but
under the terms of the advertisement
the final signing of the contract will
not take place until the company has
been shown on the ground what timber
the government will reserve from cut-
ting in order to preserve good forest
conditions and provide for reproduc-
ton.
The company will be allowed it's
full 800 million feet, but naturally it
will not be allowed to cut clean. As
rule the forest service reserves some
thing like one-third of the forest stand
IN applying forestry on government
holdings A marking board made up
OF one man sent from Washington, one
from the district Office in San Fran
cisco, and the local forest supervisor
will carefully mark sample area, to
show how the restrictions on cutting
will be applied. Representatives OF
the company will then go over this
area, after which Chief Forester
Graves and his assistants will, it is
expected, make final arrangements
with the company in San Francisco,
and the contract of sale will be
signed.
"The forest service,'' said Mr..
Graves in speaking of this sale, 'shas
received number of inquiries wheth-
er in selling so much timper to q sin
gle purchaser the government may not
be opening the way to monopolistic
control of local lumber markets. 9th
er correspondents are disturbed lest
the sale prove bad bargain r the
government through the rise in value
OF the timber in the twenty-one years
during which the company will cut.
Such large and long time sales of
national forest timber as that to the
California company are new devel-
| opment in the forest service. Great
bodies of mature but inaccessible tim.
Der can be put on the market only if
sale contracts are let on terms which
will justify a very heavy initial invest
ment in transportation facilities. In
entering into such contracts, however.
special safeguards to protect the pub
| lie against monopoly and to prevent
an undue speculative profit to the pur-
chaser are employed.
The national forests contain. in
all, the equivalent of nearly 600 bill
lion feet of timber now of merchant
able size, besides young growth for
future harvest. Because of its remote
ness from market and the wild, noun
famous country, without transporta-
tion facilities, in which most of it lies.
only a bmall percentage can now ue
cost more to get it out than it would
cost more to get it out than ii would
bring. The sale of less than one-fifh
of one per cent of our total supply to
one company leaves plenty of room
Tor competition by other companies.
The timber which has been sold
to the California company lies well
back in the Sierra Nevada mountains
and will require the construction of 20
miles of standard gauge railroad to
open up the area. Since this road will
also open up other national forest tim
ber and will be common carrier, it
creates another safeguard against
monopoly The company is given q
cutting period of twenty-five years to
remove the timber, besides an addi-
tional two years for the construction
of logging and manufacturing facili-
ties. The sale was publicly advertis-
ed for six months in order to give an
opportunity for all who wished to CON-
pete for the contract to make bids,
as is done in all large national forest
sales.
"No business organization would
undertake the heavy investment neces-
sary in such cases unless the handling
of a large body of timber and a suffi-
cient period in which to remove it un-
der practicable logging conditions are
assured. The great difficulty in MAX
ing such long-term sales IS to estab-
lish a price which will be fair to both
sides. No one can foresee future con-
ditions well enough to know what
stumpage will be worth ten, fifteen, or
twenty years hence.
Consequently the terms of sale
provide for the readjustment of
stumpage prices every five years. The
basis for fixing the prices will be, in
each case, the prices of manufactured
lumber in the markets where the tim
Der is sold during the preceding two
years.
"For several years the forest SER
wee has been selilng In the nelgnDor-
hood of a million dollars worth OF ma
tional forest stumpage per year, but
this combined with what is cut for
free use is only about one-eighth of
what might be cut without reducing
the permanent stock of the forests.
The supply will be kept up through
growth. BY making long-term sales
it will be possible greatly to increase
the amount available Tor supplies
through overcutting. 1t will always
remain true, however, that vastly the
greater part of our timber sales will
be to small purchasers, who are favor
ed whenever possible. Monopoly is
impossible as long as the door is kept
open for such purchasers. Out of over
$500 sales made in the fiscal year
1911, about forty were for over $4,000
| - tinhar SipOla