It is interesting to note that before the Red River Lumber Company and the Fruit Growers Supply Company harvested a single tree, the two companies stated with their sustained harvesting practices they would operated into perpetuity. While both companies no longer operate sawmills, they own large swaths of timberland, which is routinely harvested. However, large swaths of territory the companies would log contained a great deal of volcanic rock, not the best soils for second growth trees. In addition, when they did a tremendous amount of logging in these areas, it coincided during a twenty year drought cycle from 1917-37, that until this time the region had never experienced since the Anglo settlement of the 1850s.
On the other hand, they had a positive outlook. Take for instance during the dedication ceremony of Fruit Growers sawmill in Susanville in 1921. Charles Emerson, a well known merchant and rancher was one of many dignitaries to speak. Emerson told the crowd of his own reforestation locally. Emerson recalled that as a child [he was born in Susanville in 1868], forty years ago, he helped plant a tract of pine trees on the family ranch just south of Susanville on Diamond Mountain. Those seedlings, he said, had become a fine stand of pine timber, many of which were 22 to 24 inches in diameter.