[Sidenote: Superiority of the timber on the Seattle, Lake Shore and
Eastern Railway.]
The great lumber interest will have a larger and richer field on the
Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railroad than on any other through
line in Washington Territory. On the line of the Northern Pacific
Railroad the timber is abundant, but too small for the mill, except in a
very few spots. The other roads show but little left close by, and the
trees never had the size of those of Snoqualmie Valley. The West Coast
road, which will be tributary to the Lake Shore Railroad, will pass
through good forests; but, according to my information, the forests on
the line of the Lake Shore road are the very best in Washington
Territory.
The forest of mill timber beginning in sight of Seattle, continues with
some intermissions to the top of the Cascade Mountains. It increases in
size and quantity to a point far up on the mountain side, and the trees
continue of good size all the way to the top. Crossing the Cascade
Mountains, on the east side the trees are quite numerous, but smaller
than on the west side, though some of them can be sawed. Continuing
eastward, the trees get fewer and smaller, and change from fir to
ordinary yellow and bull pine. In the plateau country of the Great Bend
there are only scattered groups of stunted trees to be seen, and,
excepting a few skirts along the bluffs of the Columbia, no forests of
mill timber are to be met with until after passing the Idaho line.
[Sidenote: The forests described.]
I will now review this timber belt with more particularity. After
leaving Seattle, there is a somewhat elevated country between the lakes
and Puget Sound, which is largely covered with mill timber of medium
size. Perhaps two feet and a half would be about the average diameter of
the logs. Here, as everywhere, the principal timber, and that most cut
and valued, are the Douglas fir and the white cedar.
[Sidenote: Forests of Raging River.]
Continuing along Lake Samamish, and up Squak Creek, these forests
continue on both sides at some distance off. A large body of moderately
sized timber runs off toward the northeast, covering the hills which lie
in front of the mountain range. Passing the Gilman mines, we meet but
little large timber until we enter the valley of Raging River. Here
there is an almost unbroken forest of splendid timber, extending from
near the mouth as far up as I went, namely, ten miles from the mouth.
The mill timber here would average from six to ten inches more in
diameter than that we passed near Lake Washington; and there seemed to
be a vast body of it in this valley. As far up on the hill or mountain
side as I went, or could see, the trees retain their large size.
At the upper coal mines I found this to be the case to the mountain top,
800 or 900 feet above the river. The trees were not only large, and
thick on the ground, but extremely tall and free from knots. I was told
that the heavy forest continued a considerable distance above the upper
coal mines.
[Sidenote: Forests near Hop Ranch.]
[Sidenote: Superior to the Long Leaf forests of the Southern States and
of the Mississippi Bottom.]
In the Snoqualmie Valley proper are to be found the largest forests and
the largest trees. The farmers and hop-growers have destroyed thousands
of acres of the finest timber trees on the continent, but many, many
thousand acres still remain unbroken. Between Falls City and Hop Ranch
the wagon road passed through two or three miles of this magnificent
timber. Turning from the road, I ascended the Snoqualmie Mountain, and
all the way up to the coal openings I traveled in the densest forest of
the largest trees I had ever seen. Passing the cleared country about Hop
Ranch, I again plunged into one of these monstrous forests, and traveled
three or four miles through it without a break. The sun never touches
the earth in these forests. The trees rise to the height of 250 feet or
upward, and lock their branches together far overhead, shutting out the
sunlight and awing the traveler. Their trunks seem to stand absolutely
straight and plumb from the ground to the top. I had studied the
long-leafed pine forests of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. I had
traveled for a hundred miles through that marvelous forest on the Yazoo
Delta, where it seemed to me that Nature had done her utmost in covering
the ground with vast and lofty trees; but here in the Snoqualmie valley
I traveled through forests that for the size, height, and number of
trees to the acre, as much exceeded the forests of the Yazoo bottom as
the latter exceeded all other forests I had ever seen. The Snoqualmie
forest also exceeds all others I have known in the immense quantity of
its fallen timber, which renders locomotion off of the trails extremely
slow and difficult. The railroad ascends the South Fork of the
Snoqualmie. I did not go up the Middle Fork, but was told that the
timber is fine in that valley also.
[Sidenote: Trees ten feet in diameter.]
[Sidenote: Average nearly five feet in diameter and 250 feet high.]
The little Salal Prairie, five or six miles long, and six miles from Hop
Ranch, breaks the continuity of the forests, but with that exception, it
continues to the pass of the mountain. As to the size of the trees, I
feel sure that I saw hundreds that would average ten feet in diameter. I
measured two that were by no means singular, and one gave a
circumference of thirty-three feet (equal to eleven feet diameter), and
the other not much less. There is no doubt that many of these trees are
300 feet in height. I think it likely that the average height of the
mill timber on the line of the road from Raging River, for two-thirds of
the way up the main mountain (a distance of over twenty-five miles), is
250 feet, and 150 feet of this clear of limbs, and hence of knots. And I
think that the average diameter of the butt-cuts of the mill timber
would be near five feet. I found my greatest difficulty in estimating by
the eye the average number of trees to an acre. I can only say that I
not only never saw so many, but I never conceived it possible for such a
number of large trees to be supported by the soil of an acre of ground.
It was not unusual to see many trees of six to eight feet in diameter
standing within ten feet of each other. I knew, of course, that there
were single trees in California, and elsewhere, larger than any single
specimens to be found here, but I did not know before going to
Washington Territory that such forests as these were to be found on the
face of the earth.
[Sidenote: Lumber product per acre.]
I shall leave to men better versed in the details of the lumber business
than I to estimate the quantity of sawed lumber which would be yielded
by an acre of such timber, and by the many thousands of acres which lie
on, or near, the line of this railroad. Somebody published that the
average yield of the Washington Territory forests would be 30,000 feet
to the acre, and this may be, because there is much small and scattered
timber; but if this amount be multiplied by six, it would not do justice
to the forests I saw in the Snoqualmie valley. There are single trees
that would make 30,000 feet of lumber. It is fortunate that the fir and
cedar timber are preferred by the lumbermen, as these varieties
constitute the larger portion of the forest. Undoubtedly the hemlock
will all be wanted at an early day, and so of the larch and the less
abundant trees, both evergreen and deciduous.
The bearing of these facts on the interests of the railroad are obvious.
Such bodies of timber, standing close to the road for a distance of
eighty miles, would of itself guarantee the success of the road for a
generation to come.
And there is everything favorable in the position of the timber with
reference to the track, especially if the track, in ascending the
mountain, can be kept near the river. It is to be hoped that the timber
along the right of way will be saved for sawing. It would be no small
item in paying for the road.
There will promptly spring up along the whole line both logging-camps
and saw-mills. Besides those already in operation, I heard of some
large new enterprises projected. The demand for lumber is so insatiable,
and the profits of the business so good, that an extensive fresh field
like this will be entered with avidity by an army of lumbermen.