186 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ownership. Industrial ownership includes ownership by land, 

 lumber, pulp and paper, and mining companies, naval stores oper- 

 ators, railroads, and miscellaneous individuals or agencies. Accord- 

 ing to these estimates, 865 billion board feet, or 52 percent of the saw 

 timber stand, is industrially owned. This corresponds fairly closely 

 with the 48 percent of the saw-timber area thus owned. By and 

 large it includes the best and most accessible saw timber. Sixty-six 

 percent of all this industrial saw timber is in the Pacific Coast region. 

 Chiefly in this timber are the problems which involve precipitate 

 liquidation, with all its demoralizing influence not only upon the 

 market but for the time being upon private forestry practice in the 

 eastern United States. This ownership class contains a notably 

 larger proportion of saw-timber volume than of area in the Pacific 



New England 



Middle Atlantic__ 

 Lake 



Central 



South 



Pacific Coast___ 

 N. Rocky Mt._ 

 S. Rocky Mt. 



Industrial 



200 400 600 800 1000 



BILLION FEET BOARD MEASURE 



200 400 600 800 



Billion Feet Board Measure 



1000 



Farm 

 Woodland 



[National 

 'Forest 



^i Other 

 ^ Public 



FIGURE 7. Ownership of saw-timber stand of the United States by regions. 



Coast region, as would naturally follow from the fact that in that region 

 the better stands are industrially owned. The percentages are 55 

 and 39 respectively. 



Farm woodlands include 123 billion board feet or 7 percent of the 

 total saw-timber stand. With a relatively stable ownership, except 

 on submarginal farms, and more subject to something like a rough 

 selection system of cutting, they present less critical problems than do 

 the industrial saw- timber stands, generally. 



Public ownership includes the remaining 680 billion board feet, or 

 41 percent of the saw- timber stands. It includes a larger proportion 

 of relatively inaccessible timber in the West. Although the stand per 

 acre is less than for industrial ownership in the West, the proportion of 

 saw-timber stands in public ownership in all regions is somewhat in 

 excess of the corresponding 33 percent of the area of the country as a 

 whole. By the nature of the case, public ownership of saw timber for 

 the most part is committed to a conservative policy of cutting designed 

 to place stumpage on the market only when consistent with economic 

 conditions and the dictates of sound forestry. 



