Forest Thinning

Thinning in forestry is the selective removal of trees, primarily undertaken to improve the growth rate  or health of the remaining trees. This may be done to make the stand more profitable in an upcoming final felling or to achieve ecological goals such as increasing biodiversity or accelerating the development of desired structural attributes such as large diameter trees with long tree crowns.

Thinning has most been developed as a science in Centeral Europe. There are significant developments in this. These methods have been applied outside of Europe to many forests around the world, based on this basis - overcrowded trees are under competitive stress from their neighbors. Thinning may be done to increase the resistance of the stand to environmental stress such as drought, insect infestation or extreme temperature.

A thinning in which the trees removed have little or no economic value is called a pre-commercial thinning. Ecological thinning is a variant of this being trialed for use in forest conservation in Australia.  Chemical thinning is a form of non-commercial thinning in which the trees are killed while they stand by injecting a chemical such as glyphosate into a cut made in the stem. This reduces the number of live stems remaining, providing a benefit to those that remain and may be undertaken where the cost of a traditional thin is high. It can also be don on very exposed sites where breaking the canopy through a traditional thinning operation would expose the stand to a high risk windthrow.

Traditionally thinning has been done to create a desired balance between individual tree attributes and per area attributes such as volume. It has been, and often still is, applied with he desire to create uniform stands. Thinning treatments are often descried in terms of number of trees per area to remain or average spacing between trees. The intent is to create and manage uniform stands.

Another type of thinning is called variable density thinning. In this type of thinning, the intent is to manage various portions of the stand in different ways to create structural and spatial heterogeneity. The intent is often to increase biodiversity or wildlife habitat. In variable density thinning, some portions of the stand may not be entered. These unentered areas, sometimes called reserves, leave islands, or skips (as they are skipped over) help retain a large range of tree diameters, serve as a future source of competition-related mortality, and may preserve snags, down wood, and understory plants. Other portions of a stand could be heavily thinned or gaps or openings could be created. These areas accelerate the growth rates of trees in the open areas or on their perimeter and help retain or develop long crowns with live branches. Another portion of the stand, sometimes referred to as the matrix, is thinned to result in residual trees densities which area in between the other extremes. Over the whole area, a wide variety of trees with different diameters and species are retained.

Weyerhaeuser Timber Company

On January 3, 1900, the timber industry in Washington underwent one of the biggest changes in its history. On that day, Midwestern lumber magnate Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased 900,000 acres of land from the Northern Pacific railroad in the largest private land transaction in American history to that point in time. He paid $6 an acre.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser

Weyerhaeuser’s company brought economies of scale that modernized the industry. Part of the company’s deal with Northern Pacific give it low rates on shipments to the eastern markets. At the same time, the formerly thriving lumber industry of Wisconsin and Minnesota was in decline, due to deforestation. Thus, the national prominence of the Pacific Northwest timber industry was ensured.

Worker’s compensation laws

Weyerhaeuser did not take a hard line on wages and working conditions. He came more from the tradition of those who saw value to good morale and decent pay, though of course his employees may not have always agreed with that statement.

The issue of injuries and deaths on the job was central. The dangers came from being cut and crushed, and the protections and compensation were inconsistent. However, some workers brought suits in state court and were awarded large sums. Many companies maintained that workers routinely ignored safety measures and were frightened by the size of the judgments.

In any event, a compromise was reached. Working with the American Federation of Labor, the largest timber companies including Weyerhaeuser’s drafted a worker’s compensation law, which was implemented in 1911. Thus, Washington joined the first wave of states to establish such programs.
While the labor situation in the area remained volatile, groups like the Wobblies never gained the influence that they aspired to.

The Beginning of the Logging and Timber Industry in Washington

It is difficult to imagine the development of Washington State without the presence of the logging industry. It didn't take long for the California Gold Rush to expose the need for a steady, food supply of lumber. Starting in the 1850s, the area around the Puget Sound served this need. For a hundred years, no other industry came close to matching logging in its importance to Washington.

Many forests were nearly destroyed by heedless practices during those early years. Encourage by Gifford Pinchot of the US Forestry Service, and by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, compromises were gradually reached with an eye towards sustainable timber harvesting. Simultaneously preserving the forest and profiting from it is a tension that has defined Washington ever since.

The Rough World of Washington Logging Towns

Early Logging Towns

During the first decades of significant settlement, logging was very much a small organization enterprise. Often a few men would set up a site near the shore of Puget Sound, cut down all of the surrounding trees, and overload the closest ship for transport to California. Transport by any means other than boat, was difficult in the back-country. Towns remained small, and the culture of the logging men was libertine and suffused with machismo. 

 An early lumber mill on the shores of Puget Sound

No town of any size existed without a saloon. With little else to spend their money on, men congregated to gamble, drink, fight, and carouse with prostitutes. There were few white women, so most of the hookers were native Indians or Asian women.

While logging also occurred in Oregon, the cultural effects were mitigated there by the presence of numerous farming families, who brought something of a check to the excesses of taverns and prostitution. In Washington, the loggers had the place to themselves for many years, and the area gained its reputation as a den of vice and lawlessness. Few outsiders dared venture into some of the towns.

Most notorious were the cities around Grays Harbor, such as Aberdeen and Hoquiam. In a single year over forty dead bodies were found floating in the water under varying circumstances. Billy Gohl was credited with many of the murders, as well as innumerable assaults, thefts, and arsons. Part-time psychopath, part-time bartender and union agent, he took a special delight in targeting sailors at liberty.

What Is Logging?

What is Logging?

Logging, or commercial logging, involves cutting trees for sale as timber or pulp.  The timber is used to build homes, furniture, etc and the pulp is used to make paper and paper products.  In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard.

Logging is generally categorized into two categories:  selective and clear-cutting. 

Selective logging is selective because loggers choose only wood that is highly valued, such as mahogany. 

Clear-cutting is not selective.  Loggers are interested in all types of wood and therefore cut all of the trees down, thus clearing the forest, hence the name- clear-cutting.

Methods of Logging:

There are three popular methods of logging, namely tree-length logging, full-tree length logging and cutto-length logging.
In tree-length logging, trees are felled and its branches and crown removed on the spot. After this, the de-limbed, felled trees are transported in a truck from where they are taken to a sawmill. 

Full-tree length logging is the most widely used process of tree logging. Here a tree is felled and transported to the roadside where all its branches and its crown are removed. This technique can e harmful for the area since it destroys all the nutrients and soil cover from the area. 

Finally cut-to-length logging is used in areas densely popiulated with trees. It involves the felling and 'de-limbing' of the tree witht he help of a felling machine known as the harvester. These trees are then transported by a forwarder, another machine used to gather trees for transportation. It is a relatively new process and is used a lot in European countries. The method is also called the Short wood operation.