FOREST SERVICE METHODS OF LUMBERING. A CERTAIN PROPORTION OF
THE TREES HAVE BEEN LEFT STANDING FOR SEED PURPOSES. THE REST HAVE BEEN
CUT CLOSE TO THE GROUND, TO AVOID WASTE, AND THE BRANCHES PILED AT A
SAFE DISTANCE FOR BURNING]

There is seldom much competition on the small lots, but the large tracts
are frequently bid up to very much more than the minimum price set by
the forest expert. In New Mexico, for instance, several large sales were
made in 1907, where the keen competition ran the price up from three
dollars, set by the Service, to five and six dollars a thousand. Surely
this was not playing into the hands of the Lumber Trust.

"_Two Blades of Grass Where One Grew Before_"

Moreover, when the buyers come to cut, the ranger marks each tree,
leaving out all those below a certain size for future growth, and also a
certain number for seed purposes, that reproduction may follow. Again,
the buyers are required to cut the stumps low, generally at a height
equal to the diameter. Under old methods they cut them off high up,
where it was easier for the ax and saw men to work, thus leaving in the
stump a waste equal to more than ten per cent. of the measured value of
the tree. "Two blades of grass" here surely!

Under the old methods, if the logs had to be "snaked" out, the loggers
took the shortest cut, and if that cut led through a dense thicket of
young trees, the logs were dragged through them, so that millions of
young trees were destroyed each year by this recklessness alone. To-day
the ranger sees to it that they go around such little groves, or, if it
is absolutely unavoidable, a straight and narrow way is cut through them
to which the loggers must keep, thus reducing the damage to the minimum.
"Two blades of grass" here also.

In the old days of reckless lumbering only the best of the tree was
used. A single log was taken, and the rest left to waste. Now the
watchful "scaler" sees to it that the logs are cut with judgment, so as
to utilize every foot of saw timber.

When the logging is finished on a tract, according to the government
contract, the brush must be carefully piled by the lumberman far enough
away from other trees or young stuff to cause no damage when it is
burned by the rangers. Under the early methods the "slashings," as
cut-over areas were called, were an almost impassable mass of dead
tree-tops and logs, a most fruitful and dangerous source and auxiliary
of forest fires.

[Illustration