A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 97 



This was only partially balanced by exports, valued at approximately 

 $250,000,000. 



Forest products make up about 8 percent of all the revenue f reigh t 

 carried by our railroads, and the supplies, equipment and other 

 materials used by the forest industries account for a large additional 

 tonnage. In recent years the railroads have required 80 to 90 million 

 ties a year to keep up their tracks, and have paid around $120,000,000 

 a year for these and other timber. 



Some $45,000,000 a year is paid for the timber used to mine our 

 coal and other minerals, not including the large quantities used in 

 the oil fields. It would be superfluous here to dwell at any length 

 upon the importance of the role that wood and wooden products 

 play in the construction and furnishing of our homes and farm build- 

 ings, as raw material for our newspapers, books and magazines, and 

 in countless other articles used in our daily living-. 



Practically all of the streams used for municipal water supply, 

 power or irrigation have their sources and considerable portions of 

 their catchment basins in forest lands. Millions of our people look 

 to the forests, or to forests and the associated rivers and lakes, for the 

 health and enjoyment obtained from outdoor recreation. If it were 

 not for their forest cover, many of our hills and mountain sides 

 would become barren, rocky wastes and their soil covering would 

 bury the farm lands in the valleys or would fill the reservoirs and 

 irrigation ditches or clog the navigable channels below. 



FORESTKY AND AGRICULTUKE 



The perpetuation of forests is of particularly vital concern to the 

 agricultural industry. These two major forms of land use, once 

 regarded as competitive, are no longer so. Instead, with the advance 

 of forest depletion and the gradual retreat of agriculture from the 

 poorer lands it is coming to be realized that the two uses are comple- 

 mentary and to a considerable degree interdependent. 



AGRICULTURE IS A HEAVY CONSUMER OF FOREST PRODUCTS 



Directly or indirectly, the rural population has always used the 

 lion's share of our forest products. In the settlement of the forested 

 regions, the timber furnished a ready-to-hand material for building 

 and fencing and fuel which required little or no cash outlay. The 

 phenomenally rapid settlement of our great treeless central region 

 would have been much slower had there not been a readily available 

 and reasonably cheap timber supply in the Lake States. In most 

 parts of the country, farm dwellings and barns and other buildings 

 are still built largely of wood and their continued use requires wood 

 for repairs and upkeep. In spite of the growing use of steel and 

 cement, the bulk of fencing still requires wooden posts. Wooden 

 boxes, barrels and crates are used in enormous quantities for the 

 shipment of farm products. Tool handles, farm wagons, and many 

 sorts of farm equipment are made of wood. In common with other 

 citizens, farmers consume wood in the form of paper, furniture and 

 a multitude of wooden products. Millions of farmers still depend 

 chiefly or wholly upon wood for fuel. 



In 1924, not only did several million farms produce timber and 

 fuelwood for their own use, but more than 1,200,000 farmers pur- 



