The Powder River County examiner and the Broadus independent. [volume] (Broadus, Mont.) 1919-1935, 1922-01-20
NATIONS CHIEF FORESTER SAYS
MILLIONS or ACRES OF WOOD
LANDS ARE "OUT OF WORK" AND
CAN RE GIVEN JOBS.

NATIONS CHIEF E0WESTEN OAAc
MILLIONS or ACRES OF WOOD
LANDS ARE aOUT OF WORK. AND
CAN RE GIVEN JOBS.
BY w. d. GREELEY,
chief U. s. Forest Service.
Eaitors N6te.-W. r. Greeley Is
CHIEF Of the United states Forest serv-
ice. He is making life work OF saw
iru ia the nation the wood that Is left
and to creating a new supply OF tim
her 10 fiji the demand that will exist
FOR untold years to ccme. He has some
facts and figures that are surprising.
The lumber industry of the United
States il dropping behind the ROCKY
Mountains. This Ia the outstanding
fact in the 1920 canvass Of American
sawmills Just completed by the Forest
Service. The cut Of lumber In prac-
tically evry western states mas IN
creased, in nearly every eastern state
it has declined. Washington heads the
list CT lumber producing states ana
manufactures a sixth Of the entire
lumber Of the country. Louisiana long
held second place. but now yields 1t
to Oregon. California becomes the nIth
in rank, replacing another of her
mill has steady eaten it's way west
ward and now cropping the last ricn
virgin pastures. Over 60 per cent OF
The timber left in the United States
hes between the Rocky Mountains and
the Pacific ocean. From that region
the country must draw a steadily In
creasing part of the thirty-five odd
billion feet of umbec which 1t needs
industries.
Last summer rode over sixty
mile stub railroad in the mountains OF
West Virginia on which thfrty-nve
sawmills,l arge and small, have oeeh
dismantlei anda bnde'ned within the
last fifteen years. It's stations are
mostly sawdust piles, each with It's
cluster OF vacant, rotting buildings.
Anoher stub a few miles distant once
marketed the product of twelve large
sawmills. Now one Of them is left
and it's cummings saws will become ST.
lent in four or five years. The forest
Industries Of this region are practically
at an end. Its, mill towns are zone
with Nincveh and Tyre" Here and
there throughout tnce vast forests OF
hen,lock. spruce and oak. Their is a
little group Of bottomland farms or
a little patch Of pasture land. Nine
tenth Of it is a burned and idle waste
The story of these West Virginia
mountains tells the history of many
timbered regions and oncet hriving m
dustrial districts in the United states
II ia retold in the Allegheny foress
IF Pennsylvania, in the old sawmill
towns and lumber camps of the Great
nrfa hardening
South Atlantic and the Gulf. 1t is no
only a story CT forest wreckaee bu
OF economic and social retrogression
The sawmill, pursuing the course die
tated by it's own financial fortunes. ha
left enormous areas CT unemployed
and unproductive land behind it. AM
with the passing of the sawmill pass
cd the principle industry and sourc
Of employment Where the denude'
.and was fertile and tillable and wher
genuine demand for it's cultivation
followed the lumberjack. as in tn
Ohio valley, the destruction CT larg
rart of the forest was necessary to eco
nomic progress. But enormous areas
stripped of their timber and burned 9
their young growth. will never be con
verified into farms; and other vas
stretches Of low or uncertain agr1cu
tural value will not be cultivated &c
another generation or more. In 1ac
the farm economists tell us that tn
extension ofp low-land In the Unite
states is due for a slowing up an
that the necessary trend of America
agriculture is toward the more intel
siye fertilization and tillage OF lar
now under the pillow. And we have all
learned that productive woodiot
a valuable if not necessary. part
very many of our farms.
The real reason for the westWal
sstrek" of the saWmill Is net becau
NEST Of the virgin forests between q
Atlantic and the Great Plains ha
been cut. for such cutting was nece
sary and inevitable. 1t Is rather b
cause much Of our good mother ear
Il: out of work. There are some )
millions acres Of logged-off land viii
have not been converted into farn
EiEhty-one million acres of 1T a
wholly idle as far as the production
any other useful crop is concern'
Many other million acres are growt
but small fraction of the wood tn
might produce. A large pant OF eve
old forest region is idle today. Th'
are twenty million unemployed Tor
acres in the Lake states and anoti
twenty million in the South. Idle Il
Sed-off land lies within stones thr
Of great lumber consuming centers
New York and Pennsylvania. Tn
are over FIVE million acres of 1T In
tie New England.
AS the sawmills move across
Great Plains into virgin fields. the
erage homebuilder or manufactu
rays the piper. with every fresh m
the freight bin on lumber prod
goes UP. Consider what this means
a great market IKE Chicago or ,
York. Nearly two and half bill
feet of lumber pass through Chic
yearly. 1t 10 the greatest lumber n
ket Of the world. Thirty years
'ttw "a supplied BY thesabundant
ests Of the Central and Lake st'
and the freight charge on the aver