The Winslow mail., 1925-01-30
HALF BILLION FEET
GOV. TIMBER WAS
APPRAISED IN 1924

To meet heavy demand for national
forest timber by old and new lumber
ing operations in the southwest, for
est service timber men examined, es-
timated and computed minimum
stumpage price on 565 million feet Of
timber during 1924, according to Dis
trict Forester F. c. w. Pooler of AL
buquerque, who states that practically
all sawmills in Arizona and New Mex
leo operated at usual capacity
throughout the year.
The year 1924, Mr.. Pooler states,
was period of unusual demand for
national forest timber 1t was, in fact,
the biggest year in point of timber
appraisal work yet handled by the
southwestern district of the forest
service. Old established sawmilling
concerns operated steadily through
cut the year at practically their usual
rate and several new outfits made pro-
gress toward getting started in the
lumber manufacturing business. For
est service logging engineers were
crowded with timber appraisal jobs
during the whole field season.
Some of the appraisal jobs covered
purchased by saWmills of a hundred
thousand to two hundred thousand
board feet daily capacity while others
ran down to tracts upon which local
and small commercial mills operate.
They were scattered over five of the
fourteen national forests or Arizona
and New Mexico and made an aggre-
gate total of sos million board feet
of timber.
The largest of the appraisal jobs
handled by the forest service last
year is the Deer Springs logging
chance on the Sitgreaves National
Forest south of Winslow. 1t it also
the largest single block of timber
ever appraised by the southwestern
district office of forest management.
This logging chance is the first COM
partment of huge tract containing
about 100000 acres upon which there
is virgin stand of approximately
two billion board feet of western yell
low pine timber that is ripe and ready
for harvest.
The Deer Springs logging unit, ac-
cording to the district forester, to-
gether with other compartments of the
two billion foot reservoir of timber
behind it which will be appraised and
opened to sale as the timber is need
ed, will provide raw material for a
modern lumber manufacturing plant
at the rate of thirty million feet a
year and keep it up perpetually The
forest service management plan for
the tract provides that average annual
cutting shall not exceed average an
nual replacement by growth. By the
time the last compartment has been
logged over there will be another
crop of trees on the first unit ready
for the saw, that will equal if it does
not surpass the stand now available.
Other important appraisal jobs,
handled by the forest service last
year, included the Oak Greek unit,
161 million feet, south of Flagstaff
on the Coconino forest; the Left Hand
logging chance, II million feet, in the
Graham mountains on the Crook for
est in southern Arizona; the Turkey
Springs and Navajo Siding units, II
million feet, and the Aqua Fria unit,
II million feet on the Manzano forest
east of Gallup; and the Laguna Seca
unit, 21 million feet, on the Carson
forest in northern New Mexico. In
addition to the appraisal of govern
ment timber, forest service men ap-
praised 40 million feet of timber for
the state of New Mexico.