56 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



mine policy, on the market quick enough to satisfy the timber mine 

 owners is insoluble. 



In order to absorb this tremendous quantity, the consumer should 

 not only have to live in wooden houses, but wear wooden shoes, wooden 

 clothing and eat wooden breakfast food. This would last only a few 

 years, however, until the destruction of the forest resoiirce could be 

 profitably (from the standpoint of the timber mine owner) completed. 

 After that the consumer would have to use concrete and steel substitutes 

 for all of the above. 



The only effective maintenance of price must he one through limitation 

 of the quantity placed on the market. The only sound limitation oj the 

 amount to he marketed annually is that imposed hy what this resomce 

 will produce continuously. Bad as that forestry is which over cuts any 

 given producing unit, that which undercuts is still worse because it neither 

 furnishes revenue to the owner nor supplies the consumer with product. 

 The only safe forestry is that which take the full yield right along — 

 thus giving the owner the maximimi financial return at the same time 

 the public gets the maximum product. American forest resources 

 should be made permanent and continuous revenue producers. Such 

 a policy would create for American forest industry a simplified selling 

 problem of disposing of not more than 40 to 50 billion feet annually 

 with present standards of utilization. The remainder of the manu- 

 facturing and selling problem consists in making into usable products 

 and finding a market for that vast quantity of by-product now wasted. 

 So long as we have the timber mine policy with its 2,200 billion feet of 

 high-grade timber seeking immediate market, we can be sure that small 

 progress will be made in marketing the material now wasted. If the 

 process of liquidation of timber holdings, predicted by many, takes place, 

 we shall lose much ground already gained in this field because unlimited 

 quantities of high-grade timber seeking a market leave no room for 

 utilizing low-grade by-products. 



Obvious as is the necessity of handling the privately owned forest 

 under continuous yield, which will at once remove the depletion charge 

 from the forest capital and limit the market supply to an amount that 

 can be absorbed at a profit, it must be admitted that there is no hope of 

 such solution of our forest ' problem without effective organization. 

 Without organization, the concern that enters on a continuous yield 

 policy will continue to be subject to destructive competition from 

 concerns working under a mine poHcy, which are rnerely taking the 

 wrecking value of the forest. Experience has demonstrated time and 



