October 25, 1920 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



31 



Fore^ Conservation by Better Utilization 



Instances Are Cited Whereby Over Ten Billion Board Feet of Timber May Be Annually Conserved 



By Ovid M. Butler 



Assistant Director, Forest Products Laboratory 



Stripped of ramifying and controversial details, the 

 forest problem comes down to the need of providing tim- 

 ber to meet the forthcoming requirements of the wood- 

 using industries of the country. There are two main lines 

 along which that problem is to be met. One is by pro- 

 tecting the remaining forests and forest lands from fire 

 and other natural destroying agencies and by bringing 

 back to timber production cut-over forest land suitable 

 chiefly for timber production. The other is by the con- 

 servation of the merchantable timber now standing by 

 better utilization of the natural cut, or expressed in a dif- 

 ferent way, the curtailment of the annual drain upon the 

 forests by more complete and scientific use of the trees 

 cut. Concerted action in both directions is essential. 

 Much has been written within the past twelve months 

 about the ways and means of procedure under the first 

 method and it has been the storm center of advocates of 

 different forest policies. The second course has not been 

 given as prominent mention or consideration as its 

 remedial possibilities merit. 



It is in connection with this latter phase of the subject 

 that this statement has to do. But there is one point ap- 

 plying with equal force to forest production and forest 

 conservation, which should first be mentioned because 

 men whose business and financial interests are tied up. in 

 wood-using industries can well give it thought. A com- 

 mon reaction of the business man to the forest problem 

 is that it is essentially a piece of uplift work for the benefit 

 of future generations. That is not the case, especially if 

 you will consider immediate benefits to be derived from 

 possible accomplishments in the field of lumber conser- 

 vation and utilization. Nor is it true of timber production. 

 Great scarcity of timber supplies react upon the value of 

 the established wood-working plants dependent upon 

 those supplies. As the forest becomes more and more 

 distant from the factory, there is a potential force at 

 work pressing down the value of the plant and when the 

 time arrives when it is necessary to depend upon the Pa- 

 cific slope for timber to keep the factory in Pennsylvania 

 or Indiana running, that force is going to register with 

 somewhat of a shock. 



Merely as an example, let us take the furniture industry 

 at Grand Rapids established at a time when the forests 

 were almost on the outskirts of the city. It has become 

 the greatest furniture manufacturing point in the country 

 but instead of millions of acres of forests immediately 

 tributary, the state of Michigan today is practically cut 

 out and one-third of its land is unproductive and a waste. 

 The industries established when forests were close at hand 

 are now drawing upon forests bordering the Gulf of 



* Presented at oniaithaiiun meetiiirj of the Associnlion uj Wooil-Vuhig 

 rndunlrirx. Iicid at C'liica'jo, Hept. 2S. 1920. 



Mexico. There are in the state of Michigan today ten 

 million acres of unproductive forest land, which once bore 

 the finest forests of the country. These lands are revert- 

 ing to the state, for non-payment of taxes at the rate of 

 3,000 acres a month. Already over two million acres 

 have thus gone into bankruptcy. I submit for your 

 thought whether or not the value of these great furniture 

 plants in and around Grand Rapids would be enhanced 

 today by a good crop of merchantable timber growing on 

 those lands. 



But the timber is not there and it will be said the plant- 

 ing of those lands with young trees will be of benefit only 

 to future generations. I believe that if all or a part of 

 those lands were planted and were today supporting a 

 young stand of thrifty trees, — a potential forest instead 

 of a waste of brush and weeds — it would at once add 

 stability to every plant investment originally underwritten 

 by a once strong forest reserve insurance, which is now 

 rapidly going into the hands of a receiver. It would en- 

 hance the credit strength of these plants, possibly not a 

 great deal at once, but to an increasing amount as time 

 goes on because when your plant must draw on supplies 

 one or two thousand miles distant with all the interven- 

 ing possibilities of transportation disruption, its sale or 

 collateral value automatically shrinks. 



Turning now to the question of better utilization of the 

 timber which we cut each year. The man with a dollar 

 in the bank can do infinitely more and do it quicker with 

 that dollar than can the man who has first to earn his 

 dollar. That is essentially the advantage, from the prac- 

 tical standpoint of getting results quickly which those who 

 direct their energies upon conservation have over those 

 devoting themselves to timber production. It appeals to 

 me that it is easier to make one tree which you have in 

 hand do the work of two than to raise two trees of which 

 the seed is not yet planted. This seems especially true 

 when we consider that less than half of every tree cut in 

 the forest is fully utilized. The Madison Section of the 

 Society of American Foresters has been giving some study 

 to the place of utilization in a national forest policy and 

 the statistics which follow have, in part, been amended 

 by its forestry committee. 



According to the best figures available, our present 

 consumption of lumber is around 40 billion board feet. 

 To put this amount of timber on the markets and in your 

 factory requires the cutting in the woods of possibly 75 

 billion feet of standing timber. There is an inevitable 

 waste between the tree and the market and it would be 

 foolish to even speculate upon saving all of this waste 

 under present economic conditions in most of our country, 

 but there are places where it seems wholly feasible and 



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