852 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



mercially valuable timber crop within a tree generation without arti- 

 ficial reforestation. The extent to which planting is justified is dis- 

 cussed in the section entitled "The Reforestation of Barren and Un- 

 productive Lands" of the chapter on national programs required and 

 the responsibility for them. 



This vast area of unproductive land is increasing at the rate of about 

 850 thousand acres annually; but at the same time a certain area of 

 land long ago devasted is gradually becoming forested, partly, at 

 least, compensating for the current devastation. However, there is 

 such a lapse of time in the reforestation of the long devastated areas 

 that millions of acres lie unproductive for decades. 



The chief causes of devastation, now as in the past, are cutting and 

 fire. Either one can cause devastation, but the bulk of the damage is 

 the result of fire after cutting. The conditions set up by logging 

 invite fires and increase their damage. About three quarters of the 

 area devastated currently is in pine and other softwood stands, in 

 which cutting produces large accumulations of highly inflammable 

 slash and debris. A single fire in such slash may, and frequently 

 does, destroy all young growth and trees of seed-bearing size, leaving 

 the area incapable of restocking by natural means. The partial de- 

 vastation of a less severe fire is likely to be completed by later burns. 

 Among other causes of devastation is overgrazing, especially in the 

 farm woodlands of the Corn Belt. Insects and disease may complete 

 the destruction of trees weakened by fire, as often happens in second- 

 growth stands of the southern pines. All causes sometimes combine 

 on a single area. Table 1 shows the area of forest land being devas- 

 tated annually in the several broad forest regions. 



TABLE 1. Estimated area of forest land devastated annually 



Acres 



New England __ 11, 000 



Middle Atlantic 6, 000 



Lake 90,000 



Central 1 140, 000 



South 415, 000 



Pacific coast 1 1 5, 000 



North Rocky Mountain 76, 000 



South Rocky Mountain 



Total 853, 000 



ON HARDWOOD AREAS 



The great hardwood producing region lies east of the Great Plains. 

 It includes the beech and maple stands of New England, New York, 

 Pennsylvania, and the northern Lake States, the oak-chestnut-yellow 

 poplar stands of the southern Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains, 

 the oak-pine stands of the piedmont, the river-bottom hardwoods of 

 the lower Mississippi Valley, and other southern alluvial valleys, and 

 the oak-hickory stands of the Central States and southern Lake 

 States. For many years this vast area has been cut severely and 

 burned frequently. These processes still continue, but the hardwood 

 forest, through its ability to perpetuate itself by sprouting, exhibits 

 a remarkable resistance to complete devastation. Deterioration, on 

 the other hand, is widespread and serious. 



In the Middle Atlantic region, mine-prop operations, fuel wood and 

 chemical wood cuttings in second-growth stands or following logging, 



