The divergence of industrial reforestation from mainstream Leopoldian ecological restoration has been wide since the passage just quoted was written. This essay looks at the construction of the first industrial tree farm as a turning point in the history of land regeneration. It marked the crystallization of a new rhetoric, a new scientific agenda, and a new economic approach to repairing degraded industrial forests. By tracing the path the lumber industry took in this divergence one can discover new context for the language and practice of restoration and regardening practices. Showing the contingency of past decisions made in the design and conception of industrial tree farms allows a new understanding of postlogging landscapes.

While the first American tree farm was on its face a reaction of the lumber industry to New Deal conservation, the motives those involved in its creation expressed are quite complex. Attempts to stop destruction of natural forests by designating untouchable wilderness areas, hindering logging leases in the national forests, and regulating logging activity on public lands threatened to greatly curtail the lumber industry’s activities. Wilderness advocates generally disregarded those areas already logged, but lumber companies could now point to their work in tree farming to underscore their commitment to the long-term persistence of the Douglas fir forests. Many academic and government foresters, as well as environmentalists, viewed the lumber industry’s adoption of the tree farm concept as a cynical ploy to influence public opinion and stave off regulation (Brock 2015, 2004).

Contemporary players in the global lumber industry present tree planting as restorative, as an appropriate response to logging damage. The public relations campaigns of such companies highlight the renewal of the harvested trees and the maintenance of the long-term health of the forest. Industry claims about the restorative effect of these plantings are often viewed skeptically, but whether or not these plantings approach real restoration we should not ignore them. Given the size, scope, and potential of the activity the forest industry has undertaken on its own lands, to disregard it would be imprudent. Understanding the motivations and origins of industrial tree farming and placing that effort on the spectrum of restorative land use is valuable to understanding forests health (Prudham 2005; Floyd 2002; Best and Wayburn 2001; Hirt 1994; Clepper 1971).

Understanding the history of cultural activity on a landscape, whether that activity is degradation, maintenance, or repair, is valuable in determining contemporary approaches to that landscape. Planting and management decisions made in the earliest days of tree farm design are significant for understanding the cultural and ecological patterns of Douglas fir forests in the contemporary Pacific Northwest. The long growing period for Douglas fir means that seedlings planted in the 1940s are only now reaching maturity. Current efforts to restore degraded second-growth forests can benefit from knowledge of the cultural and scientific basis of past decisions (Higgs 2003).

While excluding such important ecological elements as wildfire, the earliest American industrial tree farms were nonetheless meant to approach the prelogging natural forest. The forest ecology of the Cascade and coastal areas of the Northwest is highly diverse, but in cultural and economic terms it is dominated by a single tree species, the Coastal Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). The second-tallest species of tree in the world, mature Douglas fir regularly reaches 250 feet in height and 6 or more feet in diameter. Because the tree is so large and grows relatively densely, the yield of lumber per acre in the region’s oldgrowth forests was the highest seen in any American forest. Following the bust of the Upper Midwest lumber industry at the end of the nineteenth century, several of the largest lumber companies moved to the Northwest, their sights set on the promise of the Douglas fir. The rugged terrain and high cost of operations in the region meant that the lumber industry quickly became reliant on clear-cutting regimes to bring timber to market. As a highly lucrative market for Douglas fir framing timber developed, the maintenance of a viable industry became of paramount importance to the region’s economy. State-level attempts at public regulation of postlogging industrial land use reflected the importance of a stable lumber industry to the region as early as the 1920s. The motive in the region’s early industrial reforestation was not just to replace the forest resource but to replace the lucrative Douglas fir species in particular (Robbins 1999; Williams 1989; Franklin and Dynes 1988; Robbins 1982).

The lumber industry of the Pacific Northwest came to tree farming after a number of years of trying other, less complex methods of forest regeneration. Unaided reversion to forest of abandoned clear-cut lands in other parts of the United States suggested a similar process might be possible in the Douglas fir region. The physiological parameters of this species, the unique Northwest climate, and the harsh topography of the clear-cut sites rendered this impossible. Attempts to instigate low-cost seminatural regeneration of Douglas fir on clear-cuts in the 1910s and 1920s resulted in poor or nonexistent reforestation. After these failures, industry insiders and observers alike acknowledged that regenerating lands after logging would be an exceedingly difficult and expensive undertaking. The consensus by the 1930s was that reliable large-scale reforestation of the species would require hand-planting of seeds or seedlings, liberal use of poison and trapping, and vigilant fire protection, all made more difficult by the region’s rugged terrain (Brock 2015, 2012; Goodyear 1939; Munger n.d.). Despite the initial expense, in the long run artificial reforestation was the only method for successful Douglas fir reforestation on clear-cut land. These costs were not welcome news to the forestland owners and state agencies interested in Douglas fir reforestation. However, several large lumber companies did have both the desire and the wherewithal to accomplish this task. Foremost among these was the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company.

While tree plantations had existed in Europe for centuries, European antecedents differed greatly from their American counterparts in ecological factors, management philosophy, and economic parameters. Scattered nineteenthcentury tree plantations and the Civilian Conservation Corps’ 1930s replanting projects in the Northeast and the Midwest differed enough from the newly conceived tree farm that the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company could not extrapolate much from them about their own project’s potential. Weyerhaeuser Timber Company executives realized that the supply of virgin timber in the United States could not last forever. Instead of diversifying the company’s interests into industries and markets that were not so closely tied to a dwindling supply of natural resources, Weyerhaeuser intensified its focus on forest products while broadening its base within that industry. At that time the company was not publicly traded and thus had no hence need to see profits accrue quickly for the benefit of stockholders’ short-term dividends. The executives deemed economic stability and consistency of production far more important attributes than diversification, speedy growth, or short-term profits (Brock 2015, 2012; Williams 1989; Illick 1927). The Clemons was a site with two explicit long-term goals, which were assumed to be compatible: the industrial-scale production of timber and the rigorous study of methods of artificial reforestation. Since all logging operations on the Clemons lands were completed and the land had been designated as unproductive and essentially worthless, company foresters could be given free rein to experiment on the Clemons Tree Farm. While most of the reforested acreage would be planted according to the most reliable methods, company foresters hoped to use some of the land to conduct a number of longduration reforestation trials using different treatments and planting patterns. Forestry research would center on perfecting artificial reforestation techniques for Douglas fir that could be used both at that site and at future tree farms. Planned research concerned planting approaches on different kinds of terrain, the possibilities of soil fertilization, disease and insect prevention, pruning and thinning regimes, and Douglas fir population genetics (Brock 2015, 2010, 2004; Prudham 2005; Sensel 1999; Rajala 1998; Hidy et al. 1963; Winters 1950).

Weyerhaeuser claimed the tree farm as the perfect place for “a centralized research program to supervise and coordinate the collection of necessary data and information, and to sift out, supplement if needed, and make available with necessary recommendations, the pertinent information gathered by private and public agencies engaged in forestry and forest-products research.” It saw the most promising areas for study at the Clemons as “rodent control,” “improved planting practices,” “direct seeding,” “fire danger rating,” and “development of markets for minor forest products” such as red alder and other brush species (Donaldson and Grogan 1942). While some areas were left to reseed from the few nearby standing trees that remained, most of the regeneration involved labor-intensive artificial reforestation. With seedlings from their Longview, Washington, nursery, teams of laborers replanted Douglas fir following a variety of methods. Further experiments in rodent control and thinning of seedlings were planned for the young trees as they grew. The activities on the Clemons acreage were...