822 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



immediately introduced, the annual growth curve may be expected to 

 rise until about the year of 2040 when the total area of forest land in 

 the country is producing regular crops of wood under forest manage- 

 ment. The total amount which can be produced is about 30 billion 

 cubic feet per year.^ 



If restraints are not placed upon cutting at time of exhaustion of 

 main body of virgin supplies (1970), a large amount of cutting will be 

 done in the second growth with the^esult that the annual growth may 

 be wiped out. In such a case the forest resources of the nation would 

 rapidly go to pot. 



fei any case the farther forest devastation proceeds the harder it is 

 to stop, and the more difficult it is to start forestry. People become 

 poorer and lose heart, and need for the timber urges the cut. 



Even now scarcity urges heavy cutting in second growth in the East, 

 aggravating the present lack of growth. At the same time it is prob- 

 able that 8 millions of cubic feet of timber rot in the forests of the 

 West because the cut there is not regulated. 



Evidently the very best solution is to regulate the cutting on the 

 remaining forests in such a way that neither the volume nor the area 

 of them is reduced, that is, in such a way that the cut takes only the 

 growth, and a continuous supply of timber is given to the nation. 



IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO PRACTICE GOOD SILVICULTURE 



Good silvicultural practice alone will not insure a continuous supply 

 of timber from the forests. It has been assumed that the most efficient 

 method of reproducing the forests of the Pacific Coast is through clean 

 cutting and burning ; and this bit of silviculture may be employed over 

 this entire region in the next 25 years, and very probably will be unless 

 checked. If so, the region will be supporting great areas of repro- 

 duction (granted good fire protection) but will produce no timber for 

 the market. Under such conditions so far as the need of the markets 

 for timber is concerned 50 years hence the wonderful timber producing 

 region of the Pacific Coast might as well not exist. 



The aim of silviculture is to produce the most growth of the best 

 species on the land in question: "It is the art of tending and producing 

 a forest ; the application of the knowledge of silvics in the treatment of 

 a forest." It deals with the growth of forests and the needs of trees 



'Watson, Russell. "National Needs and Sustained Annual Yield of the 

 Nation." Journal of Forestry, April, 1921. 



