Foresters in Action : Voices from the Past : Transcripts from Oregon State College Student Radio, 1938-1940

Foresters in Action was a radio program created and performed by students of the OSC School of Forestry. It was broadcast by KOAC radio station in Corvallis from 1936 until ca. 1943. The program offered snapshots of rural life in the Pacific Northwest, and sometimes beyond, told through a collegiate lens. This book is a collection of 38 radio scripts from Foresters in Action, spanning the time period from Winter Term 1938 through Spring Term 1940. The collection was donated to the OSU College of Forestry by the family of Arthur Harold Sasser ('41), an alumnus of the OSC Forestry School who wrote for and performed in Foresters in Action. The scripts have been transcribed, lightly edited, and digitized at the College for this collection. Each episode contains one or more lengthy anecdotes about the experiences of students, forest rangers, lookouts, fictitious characters, and historical figures in the great outdoors, either narrated or re-enacted via flashbacks, and tied together with good-natured banter, musical performances, and jokes. Stories of working, hunting, fishing, logging, and fighting fires are interspersed with discussions on the best ways to manage public and private lands, balance ecological and commercial interests, and provide outreach on natural resources to rural residents. The scripts are connected by two constant themes—conservation and cooperation—as well as by the evident camaraderie among the OSC Forestry students of this era, their pride in their chosen profession, and their optimism about the future. This collection of radio scripts for Foresters in Action offers an educational, colorful, engaging, and still entertaining glimpse of college humor and Oregon culture 75 years ago.Keywords: Forest Service, KOAC, CCC, fire lookouts, Foresters, Oregon State College, conservation, Radio transcript

Preplanned skid trails and winching versus conventional harvesting on a partial cut

Production rates, skidding costs, and soil disturbance were compared for two partial-cut units-one with preplanned skid trails and winching and one conventional unit-harvested with a Caterpillar D-7F. For the unit with preplanned skid trails and winching, production was 11 percent less, and skidding cost per unit volume was 29 percent more than for the conventionally harvested unit. However, only 4 percent of its area was in skid trails, compared to 22 percent of the conventionally harvested unit. Total cycle time with winching was a function of skidding distance, skid trail slope, number of logs per turn, volume per turn, number of winching cycles, and the average winching distance

Field measurement of cable tensions for skyline logging systems

In recent years, a great deal of research in North America has been directed toward refining methods of assessing the load-carrying capability of skyline systems. Little effort has been directed, however, toward field measurement of cable tensions for skyline logging systems to facilitate initial tensioning of unloaded skylines or to provide means of field checking to see whether skyline systems are overloaded. The two surest methods of preventing overloads are to have continuous-reading tension meters on the line or to have self-regulating mechanisms, such as adjustable skyline brakes or tensioning devices. Often these devices, however, are not available. This paper describes two alternative methods of measuring skyline tension and their application

Date of lifting for survival of Douglas-fir seedlings

The effect of lifting Douglas-fir seedlings from the nursery bed and replanting them, either immediately or after storage at 2 C for periods up to six weeks, was investigated through a series of experiments conducted in controlled-environment chambers and under field conditions. Seedlings lifted prior to December, or after buds began to swell in the spring, were affected adversely by transplanting and any period of cold storage. Physiology of the seedlings was disrupted by lifting or storage prior to December, as evidenced by reduced growth of shoots and roots and by poorer survival of the plants in the field. The disruption was not transitory, but lasted at least through the following period of growth

A key to the literature presenting site-index and dominant-height-growth curves and equations for species in the Pacific Northwest and California

Summaries from 49 published articles on site-index and dominant-height growth curves and equations are presented for 20 tree species or species groups found in California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, southeastern Alaska, Idaho, and western Montana. The summaries are organized by species. Each summary describes the modeling approach, type of curves/equations, base age, and type of age presented in the article. In addition, the geographic location, number of trees or plots, range in age, and range in site index used to develop the curves/equations are also described