A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 205 



most of the naval-stores operations have the best opportunity to 

 encourage good practice and put the industry on a better basis. 

 They are usually to be found on the side of progressive ideas in tur- 

 pentine practice and in favor of timber conservation. 



The American production of naval stores is about twice the domes- 

 tic consumption. Moreover, 80 percent of it is being obtained from 

 only about one quarter of the total forest area adapted to naval- 

 stores production. It seems therefore that, so far as the American 

 consumer of turpentine and rosin and other derived products of the 

 naval-stores industry is concerned, the prospective timber supplies 

 are more than adequate to meet our requirements. It would be a 

 great mistake, however, to view the naval-stores situation purely 

 from the point of view of our national requirements and to ignore the 

 consequences of a possible shrinkage of the industry to a point where 

 it would be capable of satisfying only American needs. A permanent 

 naval-stores industry of present or greater size would give steady em- 

 ployment to a very large local population in the pine woods of the 

 South. It would be the means of keeping in highly productive use 

 great areas of land not adapted to agriculture, and would therefore 

 contribute materially to a well-rounded program of land use. From 

 every point of view the naval-stores industry, as an industry, inde- 

 pendent of this country's direct need of the product obtained, is a dis- 

 tinct asset to the United States. 



The present magnitude of our naval-stores industries and the pos- 

 sibilities of an even larger industry in the future make wise manage- 

 ment of this resource a matter of public welfare. To plan for such 

 management, however, adequate information must be available. 

 At present, comprehensive data on the extent, character, and avail- 

 ability of naval-stores timber in the South are quite lacking. In fact, 

 the outstanding need in the naval stores belt for both the gum and 

 the wood naval-stores industries, as well as timberland owners gen- 

 erally, financiers, lawmakers, and State and county administrators, 

 is an immediate inventory of forest resources and a survey of the 

 industrial situation from all angles. 



The permanence and future welfare of the naval-stores industries 

 themselves depend in no small measure on an accurate knowledge of 

 fundamental conditions. The industry has benefited enormously by 

 the campaign against uncontrolled forest fires which was begun com- 

 paratively recently in the Southern States. But it must have far 

 better information than it has now on a number of other vitally 

 important matters before it can put its house fairly in order. 



As a producer of wealth and as a field for labor, the naval-stores 

 industry is an important factor in the economic life of the South. 

 Many economists consider it the economic key to the successful 

 reforestation of much of the forest land in the South. That it must 

 be given great weight in any balanced land-use program in the States 

 embraced in the naval-stores belt is not questioned. 



FOREST DRAIN 



In any analysis of our forest resources, a fundamental consideration 

 is that of current forest drain, or the volume of material removed from 

 the forests annually by cutting and by fire, insects, disease, and other 

 destructive agencies. Of equal importance are estimates of annual 

 growth, and of the relation between drain and growth, treatment of 



