Taming a Wild Forest John R
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326 Yearbook^ of Agriculture 1949 regions stop on their way to the North- recreational facilities of the forest. The wc^st. The chambers of commerce and mining companies and their employees other groups whose function is to serve are also willing fire fighters and pro- the guests are aware of the value of tectors of the forest. the tourist business and the importance Three hydroelectric power plants of keeping the forest in good shape. use water that originates on the forest. On the forest arc five camps for The fiftieth anniversary of the estab- church organizations, camps for Boy lishment of the Black Hills National Scouts and Girl Scouts, a YWCA camp, Forest was observed on September 19, and health camps. Two Government- 1948, on the place and date of the first owned camps are used by 4-H Clubs timber sale. Much progress has been and other groups of young people. Sev- made in forestr)^ since that date, but eral colleges and universities conduct much remains to be done. summer field work in the forest, which is an exceptionally good area for the ARTHUR F. C. HOFFMAN^ a forester, study of geology, mining, botany, for- joined the Forest Service in 1910 as estry, ornithology, and other sciences. field assistant on the White River Na- Among the institutions that have done tional Forest in Colorado. Beginniufi such work are Dartmouth College, in 1917, he was successively supervisor Smith College, South Dakota School of the San Juan, Montezuma, and Rio of Mines, Spearfish State Teachers Grande National Forests, all in Colo- College, and Princeton University. rado, and supervisor of the Black Hills The streams are not large or numer- Natio7ial Forest, with headquarters at ous and fishing is somewhat limited. Deadwood, S. Dak. He retired from The forests have many mule deer and the Forest Service in 1948. whitetail deer, but only a few elk. THEODORE KRUEGER is staff assistant Mining is important in the region. in timber management in the office of The Homestake Mining Company's the regional forester in Deliver. He was mine at Lead, established in 1876, is supervisor of the Black Hills National the largest producer of gold in the Forest from 1930 to 1938, when much Western Hemisphere. The industry of the work of improving the timber by uses large volumes of timber products, thinning and opening the stands and and its employees make full use of the buildino access roads was done. TAMING A WILD FOREST JOHN R. BRÜCKART The Douglas-fir region in the west- The Willamette National Forest, in ern part of Oregon and Washington west-central Oregon, is one of these covers some 55,000 square miles. Douglas-fir forests. Forest manage- Five-sixths of it is forest land and one- ment on the Willamette has several sixth is farm land. On the forest land unique aspects, but otherwise it typi- stands one-third of the saw timber fies forest management on the other remaining in the United States. Two- national forests of the Douglas-fir fifths of that saw timber is in the region. national forests, which make up 16,000 In 1893, when President Grovcr square miles of the most isolated forest Cleveland established the 4,883,000- land in western Oregon and Washing- acre Cascade Range Forest Reserve, ton. The saw timber is mainly Douglas- he included within its boundaries the fir, with some hemlock, cedar, and 1,819,483 acres that are now the Wil- true firs. lamette National Forest. The forest was Taming a Wild Forest 327 created in its present form in 1933, nominator, whether economic or physi- when the Santiam National Forest cal, was at hand for managing forests (created in 1911) and the Cascade that differed as much as these did from National Forest (created as such in European forests. The only logical 1908) were combined. thing that the early rangers and super- At the time of President Cleveland's visors could do was to use their own proclamation, and for 20 years there- judgment, and to wait and see what after, the territory was the real un- would happen. tamed, wild, virgin forest—practically Things did begin to happen. Timber as untouched by man as it had been in claims and homestead entries brought 1804 when Lewis and Clark first ex- people to the more accessible parts of plored the Oregon country. Indeed, the forest. Their activities and the dry practically the only change had been summers and the lightning storms soon the one inflicted by fires. Trees that made it apparent that something would had sprouted from seed at the time of have to be done about forest fires or William the Conqueror still flourished there would be no forest left to admin- as primeval giants in the humid valleys ister. It was apparent also that the bulk and canyons ; deer wandered over trails of the forest land was valuable princi- that Indians had always used for hunt- pally for protecting the watersheds and ing and fishing; the white man's only for growing timber, but that streams marks on the wilderness were three and lakes should be preserved for fish- wagon trails through Cascade Moun- ing and recreation and the alpine tain passes and three small settlements. meadows near the summit could be As in the rest of the Douglas-fir used for grazing cattle and sheep. region, the forest reached mile on mile across mountains and canyons. The THE FIRST MANAGEMENT PROCE- mantle of trees was unbroken but for DURES developed on the Willamette the ghosts of past fires. The stately National Forest were for fire protec- Douglas-fir was king, and the king's tion. The reason was simple: If fire girth was so large that a 10-foot meas- were not kept out of the forest, there ure would not cover the distance across would be no need to devise complicated a fallen giant's stump. Many of the sustained-yield plans. Fires here were trees were clear of branches to 150 feet endemic—a recurring phenomenon. above the ground. As the timber ap- Since the beginning of time, lightning proached higher elevations at the Cas- had struck the high ridges and fires cade summit, the Douglas-fir grew had burned unchecked until autumn smaller in size and gradually merged rains put them out. In w^et years, the with upper-slope and subalpine types— fires were small. In dry years, the fires mountain hemlock, alpine and silver were catastrophic. In the high coun- fir, and Engelmann spruce, which now try, when fires did not occur naturally, are valuable chiefly for watershed pro- the Indians set their own fires once in tection and recreation and as a reser- a while in the belief that old burns voir of pulp for the future. made the best grounds for hunting and So vast was the forest that the first huckleberry picking. Even the early national forest administrators them- miners and settlers considered it proper selves did not know how much resource to touch off a few^ thousand acres of had been put in their custody or what forest land if they thought any personal the growth habits of the trees were. advantage would accrue. Whatever was known in those days of In 1902 Forest Examiner Fred G. the art of forest management could Plummer looked over the part of the hardly apply to those forests. The tech- reserve that is now^ the Willamette Na- niques and doctrines of forest manage- tional Forest and said: "From all ment had been devised for European points on the . divide the views forests, and seemingly no common de- are grand. On a clear day the pano- 328 Yearboo\ of Agriculture 1949 rama extends from Mount St. Helens, more accessible by new trails and in Washington, to Diamond Peak, and roads. New fire-fighting tools were de- includes 10 snow-capped mountains, veloped. Portable pumps and hose that with hundreds of lesser peaks. The could be carried by men or pack ani- middle ground is of lakes, meadows, mals were used. Dropping men and cinder cones, and rivers of lava, and supplies from airplanes was then tried. the foreground would be in perfect Agreements were made with hundreds keeping with the picture if it were not of experienced loggers, sawmill work- too frequently an unsightly burn." ers, and other local cooperators for He estimated that 10 percent of the getting trained fire fighters in a hurry. area was covered by new burns and The effect of the organization is evi- that probably 90 percent of the entire dent from the record for the 5 years forest at some remote period had suf- from 1943 to 1948. During the period fered from fires, of w^hich traces still (when, it is true, the weather was fa- remained. vorable for fire fighting) ,391 fires were In the beginning men were lacking started on the forest, practically all by to do the job. Among the first super- lightning, but the area burned aver- visors were men like Cy Bingham, a aged only 139 acres each year. westerner who combined the positions Another step came in the techniques of county judge and sheriff with his of burning logging slash. Fire experts Government work, and Tom Sherrard, agree that slash from logging is the a young easterner who had studied for- most dangerous type of fuel. As a re- estry in Europe. Each field man had sult of a series of large fires in slash, for about 500,000 acres to protect from many years the controlled burning of fire or trespass.