A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 857 



tendency for long-denuded forest land to become restocked, often, 

 however, with a stand inferior in quality or quantity. A period of 

 several decades may elapse before the favorable influences become 

 effective, and during that period devastated lands are adding nothing 

 to the forest capital of the country. Until the devastation of new 

 areas is stopped, material reduction in the total unproductive forest 

 area of the country is not to be expected. 



CURRENT FOREST DETERIORATION 



An adequate growing stock is essential to a continuous cut of wood 

 products sufficient to supply the needs of the country. The defi- 

 ciency in existing growing stock (discussed in the section entitled, 

 " Present and Potential Timber Resources") is due chiefly to 

 the deteriorated condition of cut-over and second-growth areas 

 brought about by fire and cutting methods based for the most part 

 on the realization of present values without regard for the perpetua- 

 tion of a productive forest. In the aggregate, considerable areas are 

 in satisfactory growing condition and are producing a reasonable 

 amount of wood fiber, but this condition exists more by chance than 

 by design. 



Fire and cutting are the most important and universal causes of 

 forest deterioration; they also are subject in a large measure to 

 human control. Frequently they operate together and the effecis 

 of each are difficult to separate. Insects and disease also destroy 

 vast quantities of tree growth, thus lowering the productive capacity 

 of the forest, but they are more or less inevitable in nature. The 

 degree to which they may be controlled is discussed elsewhere in this 

 report. Their net effect is to contribute to and to extend the dete- 

 rioration resulting from cutting and fire. 



EFFECTS OF FIRE 

 IN HARDWOOD STANDS 



In many of the hardwood stands of the East it is the custom to 

 burn the woods annually to keep down the brush and undergrowth, to 

 improve grazing, to make hunting easier, and for numerous other 

 reasons. Such fires have been so widespread and of such common 

 occurrence for so many years that their importance from the stand- 

 point of maintaining a productive forest is often overlooked or mini- 

 mized. Because they 0:0 not devastate hardwood stands to the same 

 extent that they do softwoods, the fact has been overlooked that 

 fires are among the most deteriorating of all influences in the hard- 

 wood forest. On reproducing areas the proportion of hardwood 

 sprouts is increased and the composition of the stand may be radi- 

 cally changed. In young stands, more small trees than large ones 

 are killed or injured. Fire, therefore, affects the future of the forest 

 more than it does its present condition. Stands are destructively 

 thinned, leaving the land occupied by the older, often overmature 

 trees and by young trees crippled by wounds and subsequent decay. 

 The treatment of second-growth stands in which many of the trees 

 have been injured is one of the most difficult problems of the forest 

 landowner. 



