A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



893 



It also estimates that 30 million acres will be added to this area by 

 1950. In general, such of this land as is not selected for public forests 

 will be available for private forestry. Planting will usually be neces- 

 sary, but is entirely feasible where the area is merely part of a 

 managed forest property or other enterprise yielding regular net 

 income. This is specially true of farm enterprises. 



PRODUCTION AND INVESTMENT CONDITIONS 



Continuity of forest productivity depends on the economic factors 

 common to all industry, viz, natural resources, labor (including man- 

 agement), and capital. Since natural resources that can be used to 

 produce business profits have now in general been capitalized, the 

 business enterpriser usually considers these in the category of capital. 



TABLE 2. Amount of saw timber and cordwood on privately owned forest land in the 



United States 



1 From table 7 of section entitled " The Present and Potential Timber Resources " of this report. 



2 From table 9 of section entitled " The Present and Potential Timber Resources " of this report. 



Using the term capital in this inclusive sense, it is readily possible 

 to examine the situation of the privately owned forests from the 

 standpoint of the presence or absence of the capital necessary to 

 maintain a continuous output of forest products. Understanding 

 of the situation is materially assisted by dividing the capital invest- 

 ment, thus interpreted, into its main elements and estimating what 

 percentage of the whole is represented by each. The main elements of 

 fixed capital investment are the soil, the forest improvements, and 

 the forest growing stock or standing trees. The proportions of the 

 capital investment which these elements represent differ to some 

 extent in different regions of the United States; in any region, how- 

 ever, for a forest property maintained in good producing condition 

 they will usually fall within the following limits : 



Producing element: 

 Soil. 



Percentage 



of capital 



investment 



0- 5 



Forest improvements 



Forest growing stock - 80-95 



The low percentage represented by the soil is in considerable degree 

 due to neglect of the productivity of forest soils in the United States. 

 In those European countries where intensive forestry is practiced 



