A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 235 



the stand which now go to waste incident to saw-timber production 

 would help build up the growing stock. The yield of usable growth 

 could also be increased by careful selection of the stands to be cut 

 and of the trees to be cut within those stands where partial cutting 

 methods can be applied. Those stands and trees should be cut which 

 offer no prospect of making a good rate of growth in volume or value, 

 and those should be left which promise to increase rapidly in volume 

 or value in the comparatively near future. Wherever silvicultural 

 and economic conditions permit, a good stand of thrifty young and 

 middle-aged trees should be left on cut-over lands. Through various 

 silvicultural operations it would be possible to increase the proportion 

 of fast growing or otherwise desirable species and more nearly to 

 maintain that density of stand which is most favorable to rapid 

 growth of usable timber. 



While the application of these measures involves many silvicultural 

 and economic factors concerning which much remains to be known, 

 present knowledge is adequate for progressive improvements. 

 Further knowledge can be gained only through a long-time program 

 of research in silviculture, forest products utilization, forest economics, 

 and related fields such as entomology, pathology, and plant and 

 animal ecology. 



THE BALANCE BETWEEN TIMBER SUPPLIES AND 

 REQUIREMENTS 



Several important factors, some of which are discussed in detail 

 elsewhere in this report, should be briefly reviewed as a basis for an 

 understanding of the relation of our timber supplies to our require- 

 ments, and for considering the need or justification for a program of 

 forestry measures to increase supplies. 



SHOULD SAW TIMBER BE THE MAJOR OBJECT OF A NATIONAL 

 PROGRAM OF FORESTRY? 



Lumber has always been, by all odds, our most important timber 

 product. It accounts for more than half of the total cut. Most 

 other important products may be obtained advantageously, wholly 

 or partly, from trees of saw-timber size. Altogether more than three 

 fourths of the products taken from the forest are obtained from 

 saw timber. 



Important though the growing number of chemical and synthetic 

 wood products have been and will continue to be, it is not believed 

 that the prospects for the development of new uses of wood justify 

 the assumption that lumber and other mechanical products of saw 

 timber will cease to constitute the major normal requirement. 



Stumpage values for timber to be converted into lumber have in 

 general been higher than for timber to be converted into other prod- 

 ucts. Furthermore, such other products as veneers and piling which 

 return higher values to stumpage have, for the most part, been cut 

 from trees of saw- timber size. 



There are, of course, exceptions as in the case of pulpwood, but in 

 most localities the management of forests for saw timber as the major 

 object offers greater financial advantage than for smaller trees. More- 

 over, studies made in a number of widely different forest types sum- 

 marized in table 4 of the section " Status and Opportunities of Private 



