The Laramie Republican

Timber Values on the Medicine Bow Forest Grow to Be Enormous

Conservative estimates place the present value of the timber in Albany and Carbon counties at $5,000,000.

This timber, when manufactured in commercial wood products such as we use every day, would easily bring $50,000,000.

The wood industries in these counties give employment to hundreds of men. Prosperous communities depend wholly upon the local timber for their existence.

Every resident is directly or indirectly benefited by the presence of timber in the region.

The greater value of this timber is not in what it will bring on the market today, but rather on what it will return as a growing crop, properly cared for and harvested. A growing crop is made up of green trees. On green timber is capital invested. The trees harvested are as interest collected. The complete destruction of green timber is complete destruction of capital. The manner of cutting timber on the national forest provides for the removal, first, of the mature timber, then in a second cutting the immature timber, at which time a young stand has been seeded by the older trees. The entire forest area is thus always in a condition to produce timber.

The greatest destroyer of green timber is fire, for which human agencies are responsible for 92 per cent of the fires in the Rocky Mountain region. By using care with fire in the forest, this great destroyer can be tamed. Forest Protection week principles are for every day application.