A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 41 



of timber and other forest products and byproducts and of watershed 

 protection and other services adequate to meet national requirements. 

 If this objective can be reached, it will never be necessary to lower our 

 standards of living or to retard our progress because ample and cheep 

 supplies of the products and services of the forest are unavailable. 



TO OBTAIN THE FULL ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF THE 



FOREST 



The ultimate objective is to obtain all the benefits which productive 

 forest land, the forest itself, and supplies of forest products and serv- 

 ices adequate for requirements can separately and collectively render 

 to our entire economic and social structure and to our national life. 



TO MEET THESE OBJECTIVES REQUIRES NATIONAL PLANNING 

 LAISSEZ-FAIRE POLICY OF PRIVATE OWNERSHIP HAS NOT SUCCEEDED 



Laissez-faire private effort, upon which the United States has 

 largely depended up to the present time and which is avowedly plan- 

 less from the national standpoint, has seriously deteriorated or 

 destroyed the basic resources of timber, forage, and land almost 

 universally. It has not concerned itself with the public welfare in 

 protection of watersheds. It has felt little or no responsibility for 

 the renewal of the resources on which its own industries must depend 

 for continued existence and much less for the economic and social 

 benefits growing out of the perpetuity of resources and industry. 

 Even in fire protection, its most conspicuous constructive action, the 

 public has largely carried the financial burden. 



The record of the past sharply raises the question of how much 

 further main dependence can and should be placed upon this policy 

 to meet the major objectives specified. 



The outstanding progress in American forestry to date has been 

 where the public has taken things into its own hands in the owner- 

 ship and management of lands, as for example, the national forests, 

 or in the organization and leadership of such activities as protection 

 against fire, or against such threats as the gypsy moth or the white 

 pine blister rust. 



These public efforts are, at bottom, first steps toward national 

 planning. In any case, an expansion of public effort in the direction 

 of national planning could hardly make a worse showing than has 

 private ownership in either resource destruction or resource renewal. 



THE LONG-TIME CHARACTER OF FORESTRY IN ITSELF REQUIRES 

 NATIONAL PLANNING 



The need for 80 to 150 years to grow high-grade material indicates 

 the importance of the time element in forestry, but the fact that 

 growth cannot be increased to current requirements much if any 

 before the end of the present century is still more significant. 



Furthermore, to obtain even these results will necessitate vastly 

 increased efforts in practically all parts of the country, including such 

 things as widespread, long-continued restraint in cutting over the 

 entire East to build up growing stocks. 



