THURSDAY MORNING SESSION 



Section of Forests 



SUMMARY OF SECTION REPORT 



THE United States now has 550,000,000 

 acres of forested lands, or about one- 

 fourth of the total land area of conti- 

 nental United States. The original forests 

 covered not less than 850,000,000 acres. Pub- 

 licly owned forests cover one-fourth of the 

 total and contain one-fifth of the timber 

 standing; privately owned forests cover the 

 remaining area and contain the remainder of 

 timber standing. Scientific forestry is now 

 practiced on seventy per cent of the publicly 

 owned forests and on less than one per cent 

 of the privately owned forests. The total 

 yearly growth of our forests is less than 

 seven billions of cubic feet ; we take from the 

 forests each year, including waste in logging 

 and manufacture, 23,000,000,000 cubic feet, or 

 more than three times the annual produc- 

 tion. We use annually 100,000,000 cords of fire- 

 wood ; 40,000,000,000 feet of lumber ; more 

 than 1,000,000,000 posts, poles and fence rails ; 

 ii8,ooo„ooo hewn ties; 1,500,000,000 staves; 

 133,000,000 sets of heading ; 500,000,000 barrel 

 hoops ; 3,000,000 cords of native pulpwood ; 

 165,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, 

 and 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation. 

 Not less than 50,000,000 acres of forest land 

 is burned over annually, and since 1870 forest 

 fires have each year destroyed an average 

 of fifty lives and $50,000,000 worth of timber. 

 One-fourth of the standing timber is left or 

 otherwise lost in logging; the boxing of 

 long-leaf pine for turpentine has destroyed 

 one-fifth pf the forests worked; the loss in 

 the mill is from, one-third to two-thirds of 

 the timber sawed, and the loss in the mill 

 36 



product, from seasoning and fitting for use, 

 is from one-seventh to one-fourth. In other 

 words, only 320 feet of lumber is used for 

 every 1,000 feet that stood in the forests, 

 uur lumber cut has increased less than fifteen 

 per cent in the last seven years, but the aver- 

 age price at the mill, for all kinds of lumber, 

 has risen forty-nine per cent, and the rise 

 continues. We invite by over-taxation the 

 misuse of our forests, and we destroy by fire 

 in one year timber enough to supply the 

 whole Nation for three months. We should 

 plant, to protect farms from wind and to 

 make stripped and treeless lands productive, 

 an area larger than that of the States of 

 Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia com- 

 bined; so far, lands planted to trees make a 

 total area less than Rhode Island. By rea- 

 sonable thrift we can produce a constant 

 timber supply beyond our present needs, and 

 with it conserve the usefulness of our 

 streams for navigation, power, irrigation and 

 water supply. The conservation of public 

 forests is the smaller task before the Nation 

 and the States ; the larger task is to induce 

 private owners — three millions of men — to 

 take care of what they have, and to teacli 

 woodusers how not to waste. We must stop 

 forest fires ; we must, by careful logging and 

 other methods, reduce waste and leave cut- 

 over lands productive ; we must make the 

 timber logged go further, by preservative 

 treatment ; we must avoid needless waste in 

 the mill, the factory, and in use. We must 

 plant up those lands, now treeless, which 

 will be most useful under forests ; we must 



