804 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



It is at least highly probable that tax reversion would be still more 

 widespread had not organized State systems of protection operated 

 to hold in check forest deterioration and forest destruction, and thus 

 give the private owner more incentive to hold on. A continued 

 drift of forest land from private into compulsory public ownership 

 is likely to include not only great areas of land virtually denuded of 

 valuable timber growth but also much land on which the forest has 

 degenerated to a point which makes holding it unprofitable. The 

 more effectively forest fires are kept out, the smaller will be the di- 

 mensions of the problem of public forest management forced on the 

 States; the more generally fires are allowed to degrade or remove the 

 forest growth, the greater will be the amount of land abandoned and 

 the public expenditures necessary to build up again to a productive 

 condition the depleted resource. 



Few people realize the magnitude of the scale on which forest 

 degradation has taken place. To the uncritical observer the great 

 amount of land still covered with tree growth is deceiving. The 

 numerous and often large wooded tracts throughout the East seem to 

 contradict the idea of waning forests. It is not the final disappear- 

 ance of the forest but its transformation into a state in which the 

 production of high-grade timber is no longer taking place, or is tak- 

 ing place only meagerly, that constitutes the major threat to the 

 future. 



Stopping forest fires will not of itself bring the process of forest 

 degradation to an end that can come only through skillful manage- 

 ment in place of a mere wild-land holding with removal from time to 

 time of what unaided nature happens to produce of economic value. 

 Private owners will voluntarily take up forest management when, 

 where, and if they find that it will afford them a greater profit than 

 letting the forest take care of itself. Through the advancing exploi- 

 tation of what is left of the virgin forests and the continuing depletion 

 of the second-growth stands, the prospects for profitable timber grow- 

 ing are being steadily improved. On the other hand, through forest 

 deterioration the possibilities are being markedly lessened. The 

 greater the deterioration, the heavier will be the cost and the longer 

 will be the wait before normal productivity can be built up again. 

 It is to the interest of the States to hold back, so far as possible, the 

 drift of unwanted forest land into public ownership through tax for- 

 feiture if there is a reasonable hope that the private owner will in 

 time put the land under management for timber growing. It is also 

 to the interest of the State that, to whatever extent reversion does 

 take place, the burden of restoring the land to a condition of pro- 

 ductivity shall be as light as possible. Maintaining adequate systems 

 of protection against forest fires serves both these ends. 



In some regions adequate protection is of crucial importance as an 

 encouragement to selective logging in place of clean cutting. An 

 owner who would like to leave part of the merchantable stand for 

 further growth and for seeding in the openings must have reasonable 

 assurance that the residue of the crop will not be burned up before 

 he will be ready to return for it 10, 20, or 30 years hence. Adequate 

 protection also serves to stabilize recreational, wild life, and water 

 resource values. From the standpoint both of private and of public 

 values, its effect is tonic, with the benefit most pronounced where the 



