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 ta Board of Forestry 
 
OREGON 
 FOREST FACTS 
 
 BRIEF REVIEW OF OREGON'S TIMBER 
 
 RESOURCES AND WHAT STATE 
 
 AND PRIVATE ACTIVITY IN 
 
 FOREST PROTECTION 
 
 HAS ACCOM- 
 
 PLISHED 
 
 E BOARD OF FORESTRY 
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 -Forestry. 
 
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The facts presented below aim to show the 
 part Oregon's timber wealth plays in our 
 prosperity now and to come. Timber, next to 
 land itself, is the State's greatest resource. 
 Needless destruction of timber through fire 
 diminishes the taxable property of the State 
 and each year increases the burden of taxation 
 on other classes of property. Forest cover is 
 necessary to preserve the flow of our streams 
 for irrigation and power purposes, to furnish 
 a refuge for game, and to prevent the erosion 
 of soil in mountainous sections. Already bring- 
 ing into the State each day $70,000.00 of outside 
 money, the industry bids fair to increase five 
 fold in the next decade. At present employing 
 ten times as many men as any other manufac- 
 turing industry, there is room for increasing 
 the field for labor ten fold, with resulting 
 increased population for Oregon. Any timbered 
 section is eventually sure of railroads and a 
 market for farm crops; but the permanence of 
 these developments depends upon safeguarding 
 the supply of raw material. To accomplish this 
 State aid is indispensable. Law enforcement, 
 compulsory elimination of fire traps, regulation 
 of fire preventive equipment used by railroads 
 traversing timbered sections, and regulation of 
 protection work under the provisions of the 
 compulsory law, are matters the State alone can 
 effectively handle. To compensate the State for 
 time and money expended to this end, she 
 retains a constantly increasing payroll, a great 
 source of tax revenue, permanence of stream 
 flow for irrigation and power purposes, an 
 increasing market for farm crops, machinery 
 and supplies, and the bulk of this benefit is 
 
 4G1854 
 
: derived f rent \ands -'which are now and always 
 will be unfit for agricultural settlement and 
 development. 
 
 Oregon has about 18,000,000 acres of mer- 
 chantable timberland, of which 10,000,000 acres 
 is privately owned, while the remainder is in 
 the National Forests and Indian Reservations. 
 
 Oregon has 430,000,000,000 board feet of 
 timber ; an amount equal to one-sixth of the 
 standing timber in the United States, or 
 one-half as much timber as is found in the 
 thirty-seven states east of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 To transport the lumber from our forests 
 would require: 340,000 trains of sixty cars 
 each; or, continuous trains reaching seven times 
 around the earth, or, fifty-two continuous 
 trains reaching from Portland, Oregon, to New 
 York City. 
 
 The last census shows 50,000 people engaged 
 in manufacturing industries in Oregon, of whom 
 24,500 or fifty per cent are employed in the 
 lumber industry. 
 
 Of the 830,000 people in Oregon, 104,000, or 
 one-eighth of the total population, are directly 
 dependent upon the lumber industry. No other 
 manufacturing industry in the State employs 
 one-tenth as many men as this one. 
 
 Even though the lumber industry is yet at 
 the threshhold of development, the annual value 
 of lumber products is $30,200,000.00, or thirty- 
 two and five-tenths per cent of the total value 
 of manufactured products in the State. 
 
 Over $70,000.00 of outside money is each day 
 brought into Oregon by the lumber industry. 
 Eighty per cent of our outgoing freight is 
 lumber. 
 
 The last census shows that out of fifty- 
 five manufacturing establishments in Oregon, 
 
employing over one hundred wage earners, 
 thirty-three were engaged in the lumber 
 industry. 
 
 Oregon's timber pays a large part of the taxes 
 of the State ; in some counties the bulk of them. 
 
 During the coming thirty years, next to land 
 itself, the lumber industry will be the greatest 
 factor in advancing the industrial development 
 of the State and in creating and maintaining 
 prosperity. 
 
 Approximately 4,000,000 acres of Oregon 
 timber, comprising 160,000,000,000 board feet 
 more than one-third of the present stand, has so 
 far been destroyed by fire. This timber, if stand- 
 ing, would be worth at least $240,000,000.00, and 
 would pay annual tax of $2,000,000.00, where 
 now practically no tax revenue is derived. 
 
 For every thousand feet of timber burned, 
 the owner loses the value of the stumpage, 
 about $2.00, while the public loses about $8.00, 
 the amount that would have been expended for 
 labor and supplies in manufacturing it into 
 lumber. 
 
 Forest Protection Work Conducted by 
 Timber Owners and the State 
 
 The present Forestry Board was created in 
 1911. It is a nonpolitical board, composed of 
 the Governor, head of the Forest School at the 
 Oregon Agricultural College, and five additional 
 members, each representing and selected by one 
 of the following organizations: Oregon State 
 Grange, Oregon Forest Fire Association, Oregon 
 Lumber Manufacturers' Association, United 
 States Forest Service, Oregon Woolgrowers' 
 Association. 
 
 Because four times as much timber has been 
 burned as has been manufactured and because 
 
the loss to the public when timber is burned is 
 greater than the loss to the timber owners, 
 the board considered its primary duty was to 
 reduce the heavy annual loss from forest fires. 
 
 The results obtained are shown graphically 
 in the diagram on page two. During 1908, 1909, 
 and 1910, the average fire loss was $663,935.00, 
 while during the six years since the organiza- 
 tion of the board, the annual loss was only 
 $16,250.00. Thirty-nine fortieths, or ninety-seven 
 and one-half per cent of the annual fire loss has 
 been eliminated through organized systematic 
 patrol and fire fighting work backed by 
 effective laws. 
 
 For the past six years, the annual cost of 
 forest fire protection work has been $119,245.00, 
 of which the State's portion was less than 
 $30,000.00, or about twenty-four per cent. The 
 State's expenditures simply allowed of super- 
 vising the work of the patrol associations and 
 private agencies, enforcing the forestry laws, 
 and, in part, looking after the fire hazards in 
 semiagricultural districts outside of the main 
 timber belts. 
 
 Under the Compulsory Patrol Law, the funds 
 needed for patrol, improvement and fire sup- 
 pression work, in the timbered districts, are 
 derived from assessments on timberlands. 
 
 The patrol law authorizes the State Forester 
 to provide patrol for timberlands whose owners 
 fail to provide the same. The law stipulates 
 that the actual cost of the patrol so furnished 
 is to be charged against the lands on the county 
 tax rolls. It does not apply to holdings whose 
 owners live within one and one-half miles of 
 their land. 
 
 The patrol law has been used to strengthen 
 timber owners' cooperative patrol associations, 
 and to stimulate the formation of new associa- 
 
 6 
 
tions in districts where none existed. There 
 are now sixteen cooperative associations having 
 a membership representing fifty-three per cent 
 of the total timbered acreage coming under the 
 law. The Board provides patrol at the actual 
 cost of the work for thirty-two per cent of the 
 timberlands, while thirteen per cent is patrolled 
 by the owners thereof. 
 
 About three hundred patrolmen and lookout 
 men, paid by timber owners' funds, are employed 
 each summer. These men perform their duties 
 under the direction of twenty-six head, or 
 district, wardens employed by the State or 
 jointly by the State and cooperative patrol 
 associations. 
 
 The protection work, however, does not end 
 with merely placing paid men in the timbered 
 districts. During the past six years a campaign 
 of preparedness has been waged in order to 
 make their work more effective. Approximately 
 4,696 miles of old and obstructed trails were 
 made passable, 1,145 miles of strategic new 
 trails were built, 514 miles of telephone line 
 constructed, and 301 miles repaired, forty-two 
 cabins were built for the shelter of the patrol- 
 men arid lookout men and also to store food 
 supplies and equipment for the use of fire 
 fighting crews. Thirty lookout stations were 
 equipped with telephones. 
 
 All of this improvement work, which was 
 paid by the timber owners, aggregated an expen- 
 diture of $60,000.00. When the wardens and 
 patrolmen were not making these improvements 
 they were fighting and subduing an aggregate 
 of 4,183 forest fires. 
 
 Only twelve per cent of the forest fires are 
 caused by lightning, while eighty-eight per cent 
 are the result of carelessness, indifference or 
 maliciousness on the part of campers, hunters, 
 
I 
 
 loggers and persons starting fires in slashings j 
 when weather conditions are unfavorable. 
 
 Keeping the forests green until they can be j 
 converted into lumber and keeping fire out of,] 
 the immature second growth timber growing on , 
 nonagricultural land will be of financial benefit j 
 to you and will help retain and improve the 1 
 scenic beauties of our State. Your cooperation ] 
 is needed to reduce the per cent of avoidable \ 
 fires and conserve Oregon's greatest natural \ 
 resource. 
 
U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 461654 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA