UNITED STATES SHOULD PRACTICE FORESTRY 119 



the domestic needs of the region for much more 

 than ten or fifteen years longer. Many of our tim- 

 ber men desire to develop extensive export trade. 

 Our sawmills are large enough and numerous 

 enough to cut much more timber annually than 

 we need in this country. However, the danger is 

 that we shall only abuse our forests the more and 

 further deplete the timber reserves of future 

 generations as a result of extensive export trade. 

 If such trade is developed on a large scale, a con- 

 servative, practical national forestry policy must 

 be worked out, endorsed and lived up to by every 

 producing exporter. 



The U. S. Forest Service reports that before 

 the world war, we were exporting annually 

 3,000,000,000 board feet of lumber and sawlogs, 

 not including ties, staves and similar material. 

 This material consisted of Southern yellow pine, 

 Douglas fir, white oak, redwood, white pine, yel- 

 low poplar, cypress, walnut, hickory, ash, bass- 

 wood and similar kinds of wood. The exports 

 were made up of 79 per cent, softwoods and 21 

 per cent, hardwoods. The export trade consumed 

 about 8^/2 per cent, of our annual lumber cut. 

 Southern yellow pine was the most popular tim- 



