THE AMERICAN LUMBER INDUSTRY 99 



United States. From an output of five per cent, in 1890, they rose to 

 35 per cent, in 1920, and the curve of production is moving upward. 

 With 120,000,000 acres in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States, 

 a large percentage of the virgin stand remains. 



The western lumber industry has its most important markets in 

 the Lake and Eastern States, a long and expensive freight haul from 

 the source of supply. Protection against the ravages of forest fires 

 is the greatest problem in these states, and timberland owners are 

 cooperating with the Federal and State Governments in keeping 

 down this loss. Natural reforestation takes place admirably if the 

 young growth can be kept safe from fire, and there is an active 

 interest in maintaining the timber supply. Tax revision is actively 

 urged as well. Eight of the largest lumber and timber companies of 

 Washington, Idaho, and California, have just inaugurated a forestry 

 investigation of their lands under the auspices of the Western Forestry 

 and Conservation Association. The majority of the lumber producers 

 of the redwood region of California are now committed to a program 

 of perpetual lumbering. Similar developments are in the making in 

 the Pacific Northwest. 



The Future 



There is every reason to believe that ere long the forests will be 

 adequately protected from fire, which has been the chief source of 

 their exhaustion in that it has prevented natural reforestation, and that 

 values in forest lands will be rationally taxed and not substantially 

 confiscated as now in many states. These factors, taken with the 

 increasing prices of forest products, will make timber-growing a pay- 

 ing business. Only when it is such can private owners be expected 

 to engage in reforestation. Otherwise reforestation is wholly a 

 problem for the state, and must be largely so in any event, as the 

 experience of Europe shows. Large areas probably at least 30 or 

 40 per cent, of forest lands will be eventually owned and administered 

 by public agencies. 



Fire protection, tax revision, and time will solve the forest problem 

 so far as any important national economic issue is involved. 



