Ross continues complaints about scaling

If the early history of Seeley Lake is intertwined with the lumber industry, the rise of the United States Forest Service is incontrovertibly intertwined with Seeley Lake and in particular with the Big Blackfoot Timber Sale of 1907-1910. Historian and member of the Camp Paxson Preservation Board Gary Williams has been researching that sale. The Seeley Swan Pathfinder will be bringing some of the interesting bits of information he has discovered about logging in the Seeley Lake area and also about the fledgling U.S. Forest Service.

SEELEY LAKE – The Oct. 29 issue in this Timber Sale series established that the Forest Service offered, and Big Blackfoot Milling Company accepted, a credit adjustment of 300,000 board feet of lumber in compensation for over scaling on the part of the Forest Service during the first year of the sale.

The acceptance letter sent on March 9, 1909 by Big Blackfoot General Manager Kenneth Ross, however, made it clear acceptance did not equate with satisfaction: "...while we feel that the credit should be more and that 300,000 feet covers only part of our claim we will accept same as full settlement."

Blame for the over scaling fell primarily on the forester in charge of on-site operations Lumberman Ambrose Norton. On Oct. 8, the Forest Service removed Norton from the position.

Ross, however, continued to voice his dissatisfaction. He said he had instituted "...a thorough system of check scaling and had employed outside scalers of well-known quality to check the scale of both the company and the Forest Service."

In a memo dated Oct. 21, 1909, Acting District Forester F. A. Silcox conveyed to his superiors Ross' complaint that the scaling showed no improvement and the mill was still being required to take unmerchantable timber. Lumberman C. H. Gregory was sent to do a Forest Service check scale.

Prior to the check scale, both the Forest Service and Big Blackfoot agreed to four conditions. First, both sides would accept Gregory's findings as the basis for a settlement. Second, the only timber under consideration would be that cut in the 1909 harvesting season. Third, the logs would be check scaled in two separate groupings: those skidded previous to Oct. 10, 1909 (i.e., scaled under Norton) and those cut and skidded after Oct. 10 (i.e., scaled by Norton's replacement James Girard). Fourth, before scaling, Gregory would go to the Bonner mill to watch logs being processed so he could better understand what the defects in the different logs would run when actually sawed out.

Gregory submitted his report on Nov. 20. Of the approximately six million board feet of timber scaled and skidded under Norton's direction, Gregory check scaled five percent. He determined the Service scalers' results were 0.0941 over his own valuation. He attributed that primarily to "insufficient deductions made for defective and worthless material." He considered both sides to be at fault, the Service scalers for not culling flawed logs and the company loggers for not taking sufficient care to cull and trim partially defective material.

He also noted, "Owing to the large amount of defective tamarack and fir in this sale area, it is very difficult to save all merchantable material without getting more or less defective material on skidways."

Gregory recommended the Forest Service refund at least five percent on the six million board feet and that culls be removed from skidways at the expense of the Service.

As for the logs skidded under Girard's rather than Norton's supervision, Gregory said the Forest Service scalers were well within the scale standard and the logs were of good quality.

Gregory, Ross, Forest Service's Supervisor D.G. Kinney and Forest Service Chief of Silviculture A. W. Cooper met to discuss the report findings. They concluded a two-and-a-half percent reduction on the entire 50,000,000 board foot timber sale – minus the 300,000 board feet credit already allotted – would be an acceptable settlement.

Missoula District Forester W. B. Greeley wrote to The Forester (i.e., Gifford Pinchot), "I believe that Mr. Silcox's action in reducing the scale on the entire cut to date, approximately 50 million feet, at 2 ½ % was just and necessary to square the Service with this Company. This action has been definitely accepted by the Big Blackfoot Company as settling, finally, their outstanding complaints against the Forest Service."

The scaling controversy was finally, irrevocably, over.

Greeley had been pressing for a settlement for some time. In February, he had written to The Forester, "...I respectfully urge that the controversy be settled one way or the other immediately..." No doubt, Greeley was eager to end Ross' continual harangue over scaling. More importantly, Greeley realized, as did Pinchot, that this Seeley Lake sale was in some ways a test. It was the largest sale the newly established United States Forest Service had undertaken. If it was not considered successful by both the Forest Service and the customer, word of mishandling the project would spread to other potential customers and to the substantial number of conservationists who had protested against the federal lands being logged in the first place.

The Aug. 18, 1909 issue of The Missoulian gave an indication of the far-reaching effects the Seeley Lake Timber Sale had. The article reported the Director of Yale University's School of Forestry H. S. Graves spent several days at the Seeley Lake site studying "... the government's methods of timber cutting, with the purpose of being able to more thoroughly explain the process to the students at Yale."

Another indication of the importance of the Seeley Lake sale is the wide use of Walter Lubken's photographs. Lubken accompanied E. S. Bruce who performed the decisive check scale which resulted in the first settlement with Big Blackfoot. Bruce used Lubken's photos to better explain points he made in his report about culling, brush piling, larch butts and other logging issues. The photos were subsequently used extensively to help train new foresters in proper practices.

Cutting on the Seeley Lake site ended in 1910. There were no more complaints from Big Blackfoot Milling Company. In fact, a January memo noted, "Since October 10, 1909 the date when Mr. Girard took charge of the sale there has been practically no difference in the scale of the service and that of the company."

The memo went on to explain that the scaling was so close, Big Blackfoot had withdrawn its own scalers and accepted Girard's valuations without question.

Possibly, Ross was finally satisfied he had succeeded in fulfilling the promise that, according to his grandson John H. Toole in "The Baron, The Logger, The Miner and Me," he had made to "sue the United States Forest Service and collect every dime of our losses."

More probably, considering Girard's reputation, Ross' satisfaction truly did stem from complete satisfaction with Girard's work. Biographers have called Girard "the patriarch of timber cruising," an 'institution' in forestry, a one-man organization of common sense," "check cruiser of the universe," and "a man who could tell the exact board feet in any tree just by walking through the woods." In 1949 when Girard was visiting Missoula, The Missoulian referred to him as "a man a one-time chief forester of the United States forbade to 'travel by air for he was the one man in the (forest) service who could not be replaced'."

The next issue in this series will look at James Girard to see what he did to deserve those illustrious titles.