14 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



It is still further shown by the depletion of the forest capital or 

 growing stock of the forests of the entire East, 96 percent of which 

 are still in private ownership and practically all of which reached their 

 present condition in private hands. Forest capital is as necessary to 

 high production of desirable products in timber growing as financial 

 capital is to the development of industry. In order to raise growth 

 to the level of current requirements the growing stock must first be 

 increased nearly 2^ times. 



IT IS THE MOST UNSTABLE FORM OF FOREST-LAND OWNERSHIP 



Because of the long time required to grow forest crops and the ne- 

 cessity for long-time planning and continuity of policy, stable land 

 ownership is a sine qua non to the practice of forestry. 



The instability of private ownership is evidenced by the fact that 

 about 25 million acres of forest land, largely industrial, is now tax 

 delinquent in three regions alone, the Lake, Southern, and Pacific 



PUBLIC FOREST LAND 



PRIVATE FQREST LAND 



10 



20 

 MILLION ACRES 



30 



40 



FIGURE 7. Area of forest land burned annually. Protection of only 64 percent of the area needing it 

 helps to explain the responsibility of private ownership for 98 percent of the area of forest land burned 

 over annually in the United States. 



Coast States, that the area for the entire country is much larger, and 

 that the actual total is largely masked by the form of State laws and 

 the character of their administration. 



Delinquency long existant has been greatly accentuated by the 

 depression and promises to become larger. More than one third of 

 the forest land in the Lake States is already virtually abandoned, and 

 half promises to be in involuntary public ownership in 10 years. 



The instability of private ownership is also evidenced by donations 

 of land to public agencies or offers of donations in large blocks and 

 by offers of exchange and of sale at bargain prices. 



A new public domain of great magnitude is being created, before 

 the problem of the existing public domain has been solved. It is no 

 exaggeration to say that there is virtually a break-down of private 

 forest-land ownership. 



The cause lies in the public policy of passing excessive areas to 

 private ownership, in the cut-out-and-get-out policy which has 

 wrecked the productivity of the land, and in the resulting inability 

 of owners to pay taxes on nonproductive lands. 



