A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 895 



regular annual or periodic allotments is indispensable to private 

 forest enterprise. On by far the greater portion of our forest area 

 saw-timber stands must serve as a nucleus to every forest property 

 expected to yield continuous annual income. The exceptions occur 

 where pulpwood and other products which can be taken from small 

 timber have a high value. The income possibilities of well-stocked 

 saw-timber stands, such as exist plentifully on the Pacific coast and 

 in portions of the north Rocky Mountain region and the South, are 

 ample to permit including in private forest properties made up princi- 

 pally of such stands considerable portions of cordwood, restocking, 

 and even nonrestocking forest area. 



Possibly as much as 275 million acres, of which 125 million is in 

 farm woodlands, is still adapted to carrying on private forest business 

 operations on a sound and permanent basis. Should the opportuni- 

 ties in the field of private forestry prove widely attractive as the 

 fundamental principles of forest management become better under- 

 stood, it is possible that private enterprise will extend further into 

 areas where the growing stock must be reestablished. 



The section of this report entitled, " Present and Potential Timber 

 Resources," subsection "Timber Growth" gives (in table 17) the 

 results of a Forest Service investigation of growth of the forests of 

 the United States as a whole, the most careful that could be made 

 with the time and resources available. This shows a current annual 

 growth, on both public and private forests, of 8,912 million cubic feet 

 feet of usable material, including the equivalent of 11,731 million 

 board feet of material of saw-timber size. It is safe to say that 

 present growth on private forests does not exceed one fourth of what 

 it might be even under crude forestry. 



EFFECT OF LIQUIDATION POLICY ON THE FOREST RESOURCE 



The foregoing brief summary of conditions on the private forest 

 lands of the United States shows the effects to date of the application 

 of the policy of "laissez faire" to the American forest resource. 

 According to prevailing economic theory, if each private enterpriser 

 pursues his own best interests the result of the aggregate of these 

 efforts will be for the public welfare. The history of forest exploita- 

 tion in the United States to date creates doubt as to whether this 

 theory has justified itself as applied to the handling of natural re- 

 sources. There is doubt as to whether this economic procedure has 

 even operated to the advantage of the average private forest owner. 

 Each time a forest region has been cut out to the point that lumber 

 must be imported the freight charges per thousand feet of imported 

 lumber have been far greater than what it cost to produce a thousand 

 feet of stumpage in the region, if a sufficient growing stock had been 

 reserved from the virgin forest. The regional result, then, has always 

 been higher lumber prices plus a loss of local industry. For the great 

 majority of individual owners the result has been termination of the 

 enterprise without conversion of any considerable portion of the forest 

 resource value to permanent forms of private wealth. The capital has 

 been consumed currently instead of continuing to support industry and 

 provide human sustenance. As in most other industries, it has been 

 found impossible to make money while wasting capital assets on a 

 huge scale. 



