90 FORESTRY ALMANAC 



the forests, timber supply and manufacture, whether from a com- 

 mercial or official point of view. The stenographic record of its hear- 

 ings contains much information of value bearing upon the problem 

 as a whole and upon all of its important phases. 



REPORT OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE 



As a result of its exhaustive investigations, the Select Committee 

 on Reforestation of the United States Senate, through its chairman, 

 Senator Charles L,. McNary of Oregon, rendered a report to the 

 Senate on January 10, 1924, with recommendations to be embodied 

 in legislation. 



The Committee's report forms an excellent summary of the forest 

 situation of the United States by localities, and sheds light upon many 

 of the special compilations of the issue. In summing up the national 

 situation, the committee's report says : 



" It is estimated that the continental United States originally con- 

 tained 822,000,000 acres of forested land. The expansion of settle- 

 ment and cultivation and the operations of timber-using industries 

 have reduced this vast area to 138,000,000 acres of virgin forest. In 

 addition, about 250,000,000 acres which have been cut over once or 

 more now bear culled or second-growth stumpage, or small trees of no 

 present merchantable value; and 81,000,000 acres of burnt and 

 logged-off lands are practically barren. All told, the country contains 

 approximately 469,000,000 acres, or about one-fourth of its land sur- 

 face, which may be classed as forest or potential forest land. 



" The original forest wealth of the United States probably aggre- 

 gated not far from 5,200,000,000,000 board feet of merchantable 

 timber. It has now been reduced to roughly 1,600,000,000,000 feet 

 of virgin stumpage and 600,000,000,000 feet of culled and second- 

 growth timber, a total equivalent in quantity but not in quality to 42 

 per cent, of the pristine resource as far as that can be approximated. 



" One of the most serious aspects of the national situation is the 

 unbalanced geographical distribution of the standing timber that still 

 remains. Three-fourths of the forest land, including denuded and 

 second-growth areas, lies east of the Great Plains ; but the process of 

 timber depletion has gone so far in this portion of the Union that it 

 now contains but 25 per cent, of the virgin stumpage yet uncut and 

 but 40 per cent, of all the wood of merchantable size. 



