1930

Sustainable Forestry – Timber Is a Crop

"We will hereby be launching on a program of growing trees."

With those words, Executive Vice President Phil Weyerhaeuser completed decades of work toward sustainable forestry and prepared the company for a new era of conservation and reforestation. Much of the industry - and many Weyerhaeuser managers and loggers - were skeptical. The idea of holding and reforesting land was still a departure from industry practice.

In 1937, the company unveiled its "Timber Is a Crop" ad campaign designed to change the prevailing opinions about managing a commercial forest. It soon became the Weyerhaeuser trademark and signified a dramatic shift in how wood products companies managed their lands.

Researching Sustainable Forestry

To further their efforts to establish timber as a crop, Weyerhaeuser's Executive Committee commissioned a new study in sustainable yield forestry. For the first time, the company used selective logging, which left the smaller trees in the forest to grow and reseed the area for later harvest.

F. E. Weyerhaeuser

Frederick's youngest son entered the lumber business in 1896 and continued in a career that spanned nearly 50 years. In 1934, he became company president. During his time, he championed the development of Weyerhaeuser Sales Company and was instrumental in the move to trademark and identify lumber by species and grade. He also saw the company's movement into tree farming and advocated research and development in forestry.

Pres-to-log®

Weyerhaeuser marketed this innovative product in the 1930s. Made from "scrap" shavings and wood fragments, the product was an early step toward full utilization of the resource.

First Tree Planting by Hand

Until the late 1930s, the company had relied upon nature to renew the forest. But loggers Ed Baker and Glen Masterson had an idea. They knew of logged areas where the new crop hadn't come back. And they knew of areas that had regrown abundant seedlings naturally. So as an experiment in 1938, they transplanted some surplus seedlings and replanted them in bare places. It worked. A new crop was born. Weyerhaeuser's tree-planting era had begun.

J. P. Weyerhaeuser, Jr.

Frederick's grandson Phil became the company's executive vice president in 1933 and later its president. He was to become one of the major figures in forest products industry history. He brought to the job a driving interest in forestry and became a quiet advocate on the subject of reforestation.His foresight and calm, persuasive manner guided the company away from an emphasis on timber cutting to timber growing. Under his leadership, he advanced timber as a crop, tree farming and numerous innovations in the use of wood fiber. He opened new mills and markets for products such as plywood, hardboard, particleboard and pulp.

First Pulp Mill - Longview, Washington

This mill brought Weyerhaeuser into the pulp and paper industry in 1931 and allowed the company to utilize its vast holdings of hemlock. The mill turned out to be a "Great Depression miracle," making a profit while overall the company sustained losses.