THE FOREST 199 



into such things as wallboard. Lignin, a wood product, was 

 once considered utterly useless. The Forest Products Labora 

 tory of the United States Forest Service has discovered ways 

 of turning this lignin into a valuable plastic which is strong, 

 durable, and fireproof. 



It is doubtful just what effect the discovery of new wood 

 uses will have on the forests. Some people argue that new uses 

 for wood mean more complete use of wood; that is to say, 

 there will be less waste of wood. So long as new uses merely 

 consume what was formerly wasted, this is true, but that is not 

 always the case. For example, beside a large sawmill on the 

 Columbia River, a pulp mill was built. This pulp mill was sup 

 posed to take the waste from the sawmill and turn it into 

 paper pulp. However, it was not long before the pulp mill found 

 that for technical reasons it was cheaper to make the pulp from 

 logs. Now, instead of depending on waste, this pulp mill 

 grinds up huge Douglas fir logs. This is just an example of how 

 the use of waste products can become an added drain on for 

 est reserves. 



THE FOREST SERVICE 



About one-fifth of the forest land of the United States is 

 owned by the people. There are about a million acres of county, 

 municipal and town forests and five million acres of state- 

 owned forest land. The great bulk of publicly owned forest 

 land belongs to the federal government. This is the 170 million 

 acres in the national forests which contain about one-third of 

 the remaining saw timber in the country. 



The federal forest is managed by the United States Forest 

 Service which is part of the Department of Agriculture. The 

 principle of Forest Service management is called "multiple 

 use." In simple terms, multiple use is the greatest number of 

 uses for the greatest number of people. The chief use of federal 



