SAMUEL T. DANA ON THE FOREST PROBLEM 105 



handle it as conservatively as he knows how, or even if the Chief 

 Forester of the United States should be given a free hand to do 

 exactly as he pleased with the forests of the entire country, we 

 should be better off than we are today, but we should still fall far 

 short of growing enough to meet our present deficit. Colonel Greeley 

 himself would not be able to balance our present growth with our 

 needs for the simple reason that he does not know how. 



CLASSIFICATION OP LAND AREA 



OP NEW ENGLAND 

 a*. Total forest land 25,708,000 acres 65% 



c. Improved farm land . . . 6,114,601 acres 15% 



d, Other land 7,841,839 acres 20% 



Total 39,664,440 acres 100% 



*6, Of this area 7,020,311 acres or 18% of the 

 total is in the form of farm woodlots. 



THE CHAIRMAN (Senator McNary). Do you concede that, 

 Colonel? 



COLONEL GREELEY. Absolutely. 



MR. DANA. That emphasizes the point I want to make, that we 

 do not yet know enough. The plain fact is that really effective for- 

 est management demands much more knowledge than we now pos- 

 sess. This is no excuse for not practising what we do know; it 

 is an argument for rinding out more. 



Let me illustrate the character of information needed by a few 

 specific examples from New England where the importance of the 



