FORESTS.
FOREST FACTS.
Oregon stands fourth in the list of lumber producing states, having advanced from twenty-third place in the last ten years.
The last census shows 34,722 people engaged in manufacturing industries in Oregon, of which 16,833 or 60 per cent are employed by the lumber industry.
Out of a population of 672,765 people in Oregon, 84,000 or one-eighth of the total population is directly dependent upon the lumber industry. No other manufacturing industry in the State employs one-tenth as many men as this one.
Oregon's mills in 1910 cut 2,084,633,000 board feet of lumber; 319,894,000 shingles; and 190,660,000 lath.
The value of the above was $30,200,000 or 32.5 per cent of the total value of manufactured products in the State.
Over $70,000 of outside money is each day brought into Oregon by the lumber industry.
Over 80 per cent of the value of Oregon's timber products is paid out for labor, taxes, rent, etc. The lumber industry pays out for wages a greater proportion of the value of its product than any other industry.
The last census shows that out of 55 manufacturing establishments in Oregon employing over 100 wage earners 33 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.
Eighty per cent of our outgoing freight is lumber.
Oregon has one-fifth of the standing timber in the United States, or 545,800,000,000 board feet.
The value of this standing timber is not less than $680,000,000 and when manufactured it will bring into the State for circulation at least $6,822,500,000.
Already the revenue derived from Oregon's timber exceeds that from wheat, fruit, vegetables and fish combined, and cutting has hardly begun.
Oregon's timber area is approximately 26,000,000 acres, of which about one-half is publicly and one-half privately owned.
Timber owners spend each year to protect their property against fire from $160,000 to $200,000 and employ about 240 patrolmen. The State expends $30,000 yearly and received, in 1912, $10,000 from the Federal Government for patrol. They employed, in 1912, 88 patrolmen.
