92 Forestry Quarterly. 



cent, if private and corporation forests are also brought into con- 

 sideration. 



Hence, if we were to assume that in the unmanaged wild woods 

 of the United States a production of 40 cubic feet of useful wood 

 and 15 cubic feet, fit to supply saw material, takes place, we 

 would, indeed, be beyond reasonable expectation, especially since 

 fires ravage thousands of acres annually, and the young growth 

 at least is destroyed on them. 



Again ruling out the waste and brush lands, which either by 

 nature or by ill-treatment have become incapable of producing 

 any valuable timber growth, the area on which such growth 

 might take place may be set down as not to exceed 500 million 

 acres. With such assumption the new growth would represent 

 7.5 billion cubic feet of log material, — about our present annual 

 consumption. 



Any one who is at all familiar with the condition of the tim- 

 bered forest areas of the United States will readily agree that not 

 one-half the assumed production takes place over this vast area. 

 In the untouched woods, the natural decay offsets the accretion, 

 while on the culled area, both in the old and young growth, the 

 larger portion of the after-growth is of weed trees, — not valuable 

 timber. 



Another way of approximating the possibilities — not probabili- 

 ties — is to assume the reported stumpage on the lumberman's 

 holdings, namely, round 5000 feet B M. per acre in the Eastern 

 United States, as representing the average capacity over the whole 

 forest area. Nature has taken hundreds of years to produce this, 

 but, assuming the same stand left to nature could be secured in 

 100 years, then the average accretion per acre and year would be 

 50 feet B. M. This would not suflfice to supply as much as three 

 quarters of our present annual requirements of lumberwood, And 

 how far are our premises below the probabilities? 



Not that under good forestry practice even a better average 

 could not be obtained, for the 50 feet B. M. represent about 10 

 cubic feet, forest grown material, while the German practice pro- 

 duces at least over 16 feet of saw material per acre per annum. -^ 



But we have so far no forestry practice, no silviculture, no sys- 

 tematic reproduction. Not even protection of nature's crop against 



* In exceptional cases on selected small areas as much as 90 cubic feet of 

 saw material has been attained. 



