222 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



needed was invited. Interest in the subject developed rapidly. Or- 

 ganizations of the various industries dependent on forests for raw 

 iiiiitcrial hoitau to canvass the situation, in mau}^ cases to appoint 

 forestry conunittoes and to fornndate pro<i:rams of their own. It 

 was chiefly along these lines that the movement advanced during 

 the year, tliougli there was not lacking evidence of a decided awaken- 

 ing of interest on the part of the public generally. To this the acute 

 shortage and skyrocketing prices of lumber and newsprint, which 

 marked the year, undoubtedly contributed. 



The crucial character of the forest situation of the country wa.s 

 made more clear than ever before by the results of a study made in 

 the latter part of the year by the Forest Service, in respojise to Senate 

 resolution 311. The results of this study were emboclied in a report 

 entitled " Timber Depletion, Lumber Prices, Lumber Exports, and 

 Concentration of Timber ()wnership," and Avere submitted to the 

 Senate on June 1. It was found that over two-thirds of the original 

 forests of the United States have been culled, cut over, or burnt, and 

 three-fifths of their merchantable timber is gone. The country is 

 taking about 2(),0(i(),()00,()0() cubic feet of wood annually from its 

 forests and is growing but G,OU(),()00,()UO feet. We are cutting timber 

 of every class, even trees too small for the sawmill, mucli faster than 

 they are being replaced in our forests. 



There are still large quantities of timber in the United States, but 

 they are not in the right place. Sixty-one per cent of what is left 

 lies west of the Great Plains, far from the bulk of our population, 

 agriculture, and manufactures. The exhaustion of one forested 

 region after another in the Eastern States has been reflected in 

 rising transportation costs, in shortages of supply resulting from the 

 overloading of transport facilities, and in a narrowing field of com- 

 ])etition between regional groups of sawmills. The distance between 

 • the average sawmill and the average home biulder is steadily in- 

 creasing; and we shall soon be dependent for the bulk of our con- 

 struction lumber upon the forests of the Pacific coast. These condi- 

 tions have had a vital bearing upon the high cost of lumber, which, 

 during the year, reached a prohibitive figure for many uses and 

 checked the building of homes which is so urgently needed. 



We have used up our forests without growing new ones. At the 

 bottom of the whole problem is idle forest land. The United State,s 

 contains 32G,000,000 acres of cut-over or denuded forests containing 

 no saw timber; 81,000,000 acres of this amount have been completely 

 devastated by forest fires and methods of cutting which destroj^ or 

 prevent new timber grovv^th. The area of idle or largel}'' idle land is 

 being increased by from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 acres annually as the 

 cutting and burning of forests continue. We are short of growing- 

 forests. 



To stop the devastation of our remaining forests and put our idle 

 forest lands at work the fii'st step must be the enactment of a FederrJ 

 law whose two chief provisions are (1) a comprehensive plan of Fed- 

 eral cooperation with the States in fire prevention and the develop- 

 ment of forestry practice, and (2) extension of the National Forests 

 through purchases along the line initiated by the Weeks Act, through 

 the inclusion of other timberlands now in Federal ownership, and 

 through exchange. 



