124 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



forested wonders, is now a major forest-land resource or function. 

 Its importance is rapidly growing with the remarkable progress in 

 transportation and communication, the reduced hours of labor, and 

 the consequent increase in time available for recreation. 



Forest lands furnish the environmental conditions in whole or in 

 part upon which a large percentage of the game, fur bearers, and other 

 wild life of the country depend. Affording as it does the basis for a 

 large part of the commercial returns incident to game production, 

 as well as for recreational hunting and fishing, wild life constitutes one 

 of the basic forest-land resources. 



Upon more than half of the forest lands of the country the forage 

 produced by herbaceous and shrubby plants is grazed by domestic 

 livestock. This range is an essential factor in the economy of count- 

 less livestock ranches, farms, and communities as now constituted. 

 Forest range is then another major resource or use afforded by forest 

 land. 



The benefits afforded by the protection, recreation, game, and range 

 uses of forest lands, though not so readily appraised, may well repre- 

 sent values to the public far greater in the aggregate than those to be 

 realized from commercial timber. On specific tracts the values 

 inherent in any one use may transcend those of all the other uses. 



A notable and highly advantageous characteristic of forest land is 

 that these major uses are not mutually exclusive. Forest land may 

 at one time serve efficiently all of these uses. Exceptions, of course, 

 occur where one or more should be excluded because of the highly 

 specialized or intensive needs of others. For example, timber use is 

 excluded from the national parks. But even there the forest land 

 does not serve its recreation function alone, for it also affords protec- 

 tion benefits. Timber use is often excluded from municipal water- 

 sheds in the interest of full protection of city water supplies. Charac- 

 teristically, then, forest land is a multiple-use resource par excellence, 

 a fact which greatly enhances its economic value and all-round 

 usability as a basic national resource. 



Forest land will be considered in further detail with reference to 

 these major uses. The greater length at which the timber phase of 

 forest-land use is treated throughout this report is reflected in this 

 section in the discussion of the timber use of forest land. The presen- 

 tation under timber use is closely associated with other sections, and 

 should be read in connection with some of the closely related phases, 

 such as Present Timber Supplies and Timber Growth presented in the 

 section " Present and Potential Timber Resources." The protection, 

 recreation, game, and range uses dealt with briefly, following the dis- 

 cussion under timber use, are treated in full in the sections on those 

 subjects. 



FOREST LAND FOR TIMBER USE 



ACREAGE, DESCRIPTION, AND DISTRIBUTION 



Clearing land for agriculture was the largest single factor in reduc- 

 ing the original 820 million acres of comparable forest land in this 

 country to the 495 million acres now available, theoretically at least, 

 for commercial timber growing. In large part this conversion to a 

 more intensive use constituted a natural and desirable economic 

 trend, but it by no means indicated an indefinitely continuing process 

 of converting timberlands to farms. A considerable area of converted 



