76 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



THE ESSENCE OF THE NATIONAL PLAN 



One of the most important aspects in the history of American 

 forestry during the last 20 years has been a trial on a large scale of the 

 relative effectiveness of private and of public forest-land ownership. 



Private ownership has held four fifths of our commercial forest land 

 with from 90 percent or even more of the total potential timber grow- 

 ing capacity. It has held the agricultural land which is being aban- 

 doned. It has also held two fifths of the noncommercial forest land. 

 Practically all of the major forest problems of today have grown out 

 of this ownership . As measured by expenditures only about 1 percent 

 of the constructive effort in American forestry is being made by it. 

 Nearly half of this effort is so remote as to have little or no influence 

 on the forest itself. Sustained yield management would probably 

 have yielded higher profits to the owners under many if not most 

 conditions than forest devastation and deterioration. Private owner- 

 ship has had the benefit of substantial if not wholly adequate public 

 aid. It has also had the benefit of regulatory laws, chiefly protection 

 against fire. 



Public ownership, mainly in the national forests and State forests, 

 has held three fifths of the noncommercial but only one fifth of the 

 commercial forests. It has been characterized by the administration 

 of the forest resource in the public interest and by the adoption of the 

 principle of fully coordinated sustained yield management of the 

 different elements of the forest resource. It has won its way through 

 public condemnation to general public recognition and approval. 



As measured by expenditures the public contribution represents 

 nearly 90 percent of the total constructive effort by all agencies to the 

 solution of the forest problem, and two thirds of this has been concen- 

 trated on the relatively small part of the land which the public has 

 owned. 



The effort on the public forests still falls short of what is needed. 

 From the standpoint of national coordination, however, the concen- 

 tration of the major part of the constructive effort on a relatively 

 small part of the poorer land in public ownership and the concentra- 

 tion of a large part of the better land in private holdings which receive 

 only a relatively small part of the constructive effort, shows a critical 

 lack of balance. (Fig. 27.) 



The plan recommended must go as far as feasible in attempting to 

 correct this lack of balance. No national plan based on realities can 

 do otherwise than take the results of the trial of the two forms of 

 ownership seriously into account. The essence of the plan recom- 

 mended is, therefore, in part, that the public should in the shortest 

 possible time take over at least half of the national enterprise in 

 forestry. 



More specifically this would mean- 

 Slightly more than half of the commercial forest land. 

 Half of the timber-growing job. 

 Five sixths of the noncommercial forest land. 

 Three fifths of the forest ranges. 



Four fifths of the area of major influence on watershed protection. 

 Eight ninths of the areas to be set aside for forest recreation. 



These relationships are also expressed graphically in figure 28. 



This recommendation would still leave to private ownership much 

 more of an undertaking than it has yet faced, under conditions even 



