58 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



retained. All in fact center in ownership, so that the main decision 

 narrows down to a choice between continued chief reliance on private 

 ownership or a drastic shift to two kinds of public ownership, State 

 and Federal. 



The reasons for recommending a large shift to public ownership 

 and the efforts which should be made to insure much fuller use in the 

 future of the lands left in private ownership are treated in the following 



pages. 



PRIVATE OWNERSHIP 



The traditional American policy has been to depend upon private 

 ownership and initiative. This is largely true in forest-land owner- 

 ship and management despite the departure represented in the 

 National, State, and other public forests. 



ITS POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS 



The possibilities and limitations of private effort must be judged 

 in part from past results. These have already been outlined and 

 need not be repeated. In general, however, they have been very 

 seriously detrimental to the owners and the forest industries, to the 

 productivity of the forest, and to the public interest. Constructive 

 management is conspicuous largely by its absence, except in fire 

 protection. 



The results indicated are so universal that they raise the question 

 if they are not almost inevitable in the system of private ownership 

 particularly under American conditions and expectations for quick 

 business turnover and large profits. The time element, uncertainties 

 as to cost and markets, the absence of practical demonstrations, the 

 lack of traditional knowledge, the general inertia or opposition to 

 radical change in long-established ways of doing things, all contribute 

 to the difficulties standing in the way of satisfactory private forestry. 



Private forestry has the possibilities common to all forestry in the 

 United States, the intrinsic value of wood as a raw material and the 

 fact that it is renewable indefinitely, the exceptional number and value 

 of American species, exceptionally favorable growth conditions, the 

 largest domestic market in the world, regional demand larger than 

 cut in all parts of the United States except the South and the Pacific 

 Northwest, the same opportunities to fight for future markets as any 

 raw material, the practical exhaustion of virgin timber supplies except 

 in the Far West, the drain on our forest five times the growth for saw 

 timber and twice the growth of timber of all sizes, a world demand at 

 least holding its own and probably increasing, and, for coniferous 

 timber most in demand, a world cut in excess of growth. 



Finally, there is growing evidence that under many and perhaps 

 most conditions it is more profitable even in immediate returns to 

 leave forest land productive than to devastate it. 



Private forestry has some distinct advantages over the public 

 forests so far created. It has the best land and it has the oppor- 

 tunity to supply needed raw materials to perpetuate such enter- 

 prises as pulp and paper manufacture, to supply the wood needed 

 in mining, and to diversify agriculture. In addition, there are what- 

 ever further advantages may lie in the greater efficiency claimed for 

 private over publicly managed activities. 



