CONTINUOUS FOREST PRODUCTION 17 



of 50 to 60 years' supply of mature timber has been accumulated in 

 private hands in the United States. This has led to a common current 

 fallacy, namely, that because there is an excess supply of timber in 

 private hands, there is also an excess national supply. If we, as a nation, 

 are to keep our forests in condition to produce with undiminished 

 voltmie, we have actually little if any excess national supply even now. 

 The continuous production of saw timber demands large volumes of 

 immature timber, always standing in the woods taking on growth, which 

 can only be utilized for Ittmber after the stand is 50 to 100 years old or 

 more. We have very little more volume of standing timber than we 

 would need even if it were of the desirable young age classes. ^ Being 

 mostly of old age classes, far more volume must he in reserve because a 

 tree now of full maturity will serve little better to supply a given volume 

 cut 60 years hence than a young tree cobitaining no measiirable volume 

 now, but which will grow to full stature and be ready for cutting in 

 60 years. Our national reserve being in the unnecessarily old and large 

 age classes, we must have more than we would need if an adequate 

 volimie of young age classes were available. We, of course, have 

 some young timber — about 24 per cent of the Western Washington and 

 Oregon Natio^nal Forest area being under 60 years old, according to 

 orle authority,^ but ultimately urtder forest management not over 

 one-tenth of the forest area need be covered with mature timber at any 

 one time. To have more is a disadvantage from the forestry stand- 

 point, because it means unnecessary investment of capital and unneces- 

 sary expense, particularly through taxes. Of two forests under manage- 

 ment for continuous production in the Pacific Northwest, of which one 

 contains all mature timber and the other has a proper distribution of 

 age classes, the former must have some 60,000 feet of taxable timber 

 standing for each thousand feet that can be cut annually, while the 

 latter needs not over 20,000 feet of taxable timber standing, and that 

 of low value for each M feet annual cut. The same relations hold in 

 regard to the capital invested. As long as the privately owned forests 

 are operated by the timber mine policy, there will be an overload in 

 private hands. No such condition, however, exists nationally, and that, 

 therefore, no permanent national policy other than inteUigent conser- 

 vatism is thinkable. All discussion in this paper is based, then, on the 



■2 See also article by the author. Vol. VII, No. l,The Proceedings of the Society 

 of American Foresters. 



3 Thornton T. Munger, in University of California Journal of Agriculture, 

 November, 1916, p. 92. 



