A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 129 



exceeds the fair to satisfactory restocking by a larger percentage in the 

 Pacific Coast region than anywhere else. It is common knowledge 

 that adequate protection against fire on cut-over areas is, in every 

 region, one of the most vexatious problems. Its solution, of course, 

 is the sine qua non to keeping the forest lands in the Douglas fir type 

 permanently productive. 



Eighty-three million acres are classed as either poor or nonrestock- 

 ing, of which the latter makes up 34 million. Although it is possible 

 that as much as a fourth of the area of 83 million acres will produce 

 some commercially valuable saw timber within the next saw-timber 

 generation, no such hope is believed tenable in the absence of plant- 

 ing for the remaining 60 million acres and more. This great area, 

 idle largely because of fires and improvident logging methods, con- 

 stitutes a most serious feature of the forest situation. Except as it 

 may be restocked by artificial means and at large expense, it seems 

 likely to have little timber-producing significance for many years. 

 In other words, as a practical proposition, this area will, unless arti- 

 ficially restocked, reduce for many years to come and to a very con- 

 siderable extent the commercially effective forest land capital. 



The wide differences in proportionate distribution of forest land 

 in the different regions according to conditions of growth or broad age 

 classes is illustrated by figure 3. The Lake region is characterized 

 by a strikingly large proportion 42 million acres of a total of 56 

 million, classed as restocking or nonrestocking in comparison with 

 only 5 million of saw timber and 9 million of cordwood . The generally 

 recognized fact is here clearly shown that the eastern regions are nearly 

 always characterized by a much lower proportion of saw- timber land 

 than are the western regions. 



OWNERSHIP OF COMMERCIAL FOREST LAND 



The character of forest land ownership is especially important 

 from several standpoints. It affects the owner's interest in the land 

 as distinct from the merchantable timber; his willingness to handle 

 his property so as to keep it continuously productive; and his 

 ability to bear the long-time financial burden required to produce 

 commercial crops on land from which the growing stock has been 

 removed or severely depleted. 



Where the timber of a whole region is cut off in a short period of 

 time, even though all the forest land is restocked promptly with com- 

 mercial species, the industries and the people depending on them 

 must move to other localities. After a new crop of timber matures 

 new industries may be established and the process repeated. Such 

 intermittent industry entails great waste of raw material, high depre- 

 ciation charges for plant and operating facilities, and disastrous and 

 far-reaching disruption of the economic and social structure. If, so 

 far as timber products are concerned, forest lands are to be most 

 effectively used, if forest regions are to be permanently productive 

 and the homes of stable prosperous populations, their wood-using 

 industries and towns must be established on a permanent basis. And 

 so it is that a system of management of forest lands that will result in 

 a region as a whole, a locality, or even a single ownership supplying 

 merchantable material continuously in other words, a system of 

 sustained yield management is highly desirable. One important 

 gauge of land ownership is, therefore, how well it adapts itself to 

 sustained yield management. 



