738 JOURNAL O^ B'ORESTRY 



The economic consequences of forest depletion comprise both the 

 hardships that result from the inability to secure adequate supplies of 

 wood materials at reasonable prices, and the blighting efifect on com- 

 munities and regions of turning a large part of the land into vmpro- 

 ductive wastes. Our country has had a taste of what shortage and 

 high prices of forest products means. Forest depletion perpetuates 

 that condition. And we already have illustrations in great numbers of 

 the local effect of impoverishing a community by forest devastation. 

 In either case the efifect is to retard and often block the building up of 

 the country. 



A thoughtful student of forest economics in reading such statements 

 as I have reviewed is apt to reserve a question as to whether the 

 condition described is not really temporary and that while we will have 

 to face difificulties of readjustment and perhaps pay a big freight bill 

 to get Douglas fir and western pine from the West, after all we have an 

 immense area in the East actually growing small trees that should 

 within 20 to 40 years be ready to furnish timber in large quantities. 

 We are told that we have 463 million acres of forest land not including 

 low grade scrub land, and that of this 137 million acres still carries 

 virgin timber. What of the remaining 326 million acres? 



If our forests had been adequately protected and even the simplest 

 methods of forestry used in the cuttings, we would today be in a 

 different situation. But fire and timber mining have laid waste 81 

 million acres that are not being restocked with forests at all. On 

 the balance such growth as occurs is in many cases of low grade and 

 of little potential value except for cordwood and round wood uses. 

 On the basis of actual fibre production we are really growing a great 

 deal of material, but a large part of it is little better than an encum- 

 brance on the land. It is estimated that of material suited to saw 

 timber we use .and destroy five and a half times what is being grown; 

 and that on the basis of the cubic contents of wood regardless of 

 usefulness, we grow only one-fourth of what we use and destroy. In 

 short, we have the land to produce by growth enough really to 

 meet the demands of the future, but we are failing to do so. We are 

 using up our capital stock and progressing steadily toward forest 

 bankruptcy. 



The unfortunate feature of the situation is that we are not taking 

 steps at all adequate to stop the destructive processes going on in the 

 forests. We have not yet mastered the forest fires; and the number 



