PRACTICABILITY OF FORESTS 



281 



lute forest lands of the commonwealth, 

 and that the protection and develop- 

 ment of its small quota can have no 

 appreciable influence upon the timber 

 supply or the welfare of the people of 

 the state. The state's interest in the 

 forest lands which are owned by its 

 citizens is paramount. The forest lands 

 and the interests directly dependent 

 upon forest products constitute one- 

 sixth of the entire taxable assets of 

 North Carolina. They constitute a 

 very large and important proportion of 

 the wealth of each of the Appalachian 

 states. 



At the present time the state's policy 

 could scarcely be directed along more 

 profitable lines than seeking to develop 

 the holdings of its citizens. Owners 

 are deterred from developing their own 

 holdings largely on account of the low 

 prices of forest products, making the 

 returns from forest lands seem ex- 

 tremely small compared with those 

 from agricultural lands, while other de- 

 terrent elements are the fire danger and 

 time ; that is, the long period wdiicli 

 must elapse before the youngest trees 

 will be mature and salable. > 



The price of forest products is yet 

 fixed by the remaining supply of old 

 timber which has grown without cost ; 

 and cut-over and second-growth forest 

 lands will, as a whole, not be profit- 

 able investments until the prices of 

 forest products are fixed by the cost 

 of growing or producing them. It is 

 this condition which makes it neces- 

 sary to give the owner of second- 

 growth forest land some assistance un- 

 til the profits from low-grade and cut- 

 over lands become greater. 



Assistance should be along these 

 lines : 



1. Technical advice in regard to 

 methods of management. V^ery little 

 is yet known from experience respect- 

 ing the best methods of management, 

 and the individual owner is seldom 

 able to pay an engineer to develop a 

 system of management. Even if able 

 and willing to do so, the owner will 

 seldom know where to secure the help 

 he needs. 



2. Assistance in protection from 

 4 



fire. The enormous damage caused by 

 fires, especially to second-growth for- 

 ests, is not realized, even by owners, 

 far less by the general public. Sev- 

 eral years of constant agitation will be 

 required to bring people to realize the 

 extent of this loss and to regard young 

 timber as property. 



3. Adjustment of taxes so that im- 

 mature timber will not be taxed while 

 mature timber will be taxed only once. 



For these reasons the state of North 

 Carolina is anxious to acquire more 

 valuable and extensive interests than 

 it could possibly secure through acquir- 

 ing holdings in fee, by expending its 

 entire available funds in developing its 

 forest resources as a whole. The fol- 

 lowing policy is one which seems to be 

 suited to the present conditions in 

 North Carolina, and which has been 

 generally approved by owners of forest 

 lands. 



A system of fire-protection which 

 will be sufficiently flexible to require 

 establishment only in those townships 

 where conditions require it should be 

 adopted. While fire-protection must 

 eventually become a matter of purely 

 private concern, it is impossible for pri- 

 vate interests to assume it so long as 

 low-grade timber cannot profitably be 

 handled, and so long as the public is 

 indifferent to the loss occasioned by . 

 forest fires. 



A second measure provides for ad- 

 vice to owners of timber lands in re- 

 gard to methods of management, fire- 

 protection, logging, etc. This feature 

 is already well established, and applica- 

 tions have been received for working 

 plans for 50,000 acres. The scope of 

 this work is entirely advisory, and no 

 obligation is assumed by the owner 

 who receives such assistance. 



There is a large area of waste and 

 gullied hillside land, totalling more than 

 200,000 acres, in the middle and west- 

 ern portions of North Carolina. This 

 land is objectionable in its present con- 

 dition because entirely without earning 

 ]:)Ower. Moreover, it has a very in- 

 jurious efifect upon streams; adding, 

 by the great rapidity of the run-off of 

 ftorm water from it, to the height of 



