THE TASK AHEAD 241 



many times repeated. Just as other nations have been forced 

 by economic necessity to emerge from an era of destructive 

 timber mining into an era of planting and scientific harvesting, 

 so must we. 



We cannot escape the simple mathematics of our predica- 

 ment. 



Our remaining forests are being cut over at the rate of about 

 ten million acres a year. Natural growth falls short by seventy- 

 five per cent of replacing it. Planting progresses at a snail's 

 pace, for during the time we have created a hundred million 

 acres of man-made waste out of virgin forests we have planted 

 little more than one and one-half million acres. Each year we 

 plant about the same area that the lumber industry cuts over 

 in scarcely more than four days. Lumbering has had no per- 

 manency in any region. The rate of cutting so far exceeds the 

 rate of natural growth and of artificial planting that timber 

 exhaustion soon follows exploitation and lumber mills have 

 been forced to move about in nomadic search of new supplies. 

 Yet, we can not afford to let lumbering remain a migratory 

 business, for it is one of our basic and most important indus- 

 tries. It has done much toward the rapid upbuilding of our na- 

 tion. It deserves the stabilization that can only come from es- 

 tablishing perpetual timber crops. 



After all there is no need for us to become a nation of tim- 

 ber paupers. There is no need of our going into forest bank- 

 ruptcy. We have millions of acres of fertile soil and we are 

 the wealthiest nation on earth. We can well afford to invest 

 in American timber futures. We have the experience and 

 knowledge of the past to guide us. We can undo what we 

 have done. We can turn our liabilities of waste land into rich 



