958 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



closely that no production of any importance can be obtained again 

 within 60 to 75 years. A large proportion of this class of forest 

 owners are paying very little attention to the permanent productivity 

 of their holdings. As a class they have failed to grasp the principle 

 that through a practice of light cuttings at any one time far higher- 

 grade logs or other products can be obtained and that the trees 

 remaining will lay on rapid growth and within 10 to 20 years provide 

 another cut of equal amount. 



The following statement summarizes reports by the Central States 

 Forest Experiment Station as to the extent to which owners of the 

 second and third classes are placing forest lands under management 



1. Independent or cooperative fire protection. Reports on this 

 phase, somewhat incomplete, show 4,671,000 acres on which private 

 owners participate in protective effort. State efforts add materially 

 to this total. 



2. Conservative cutting, planting, and other practices aimed at 

 prolonging productivity of the forest. Reports show 1,560,000 acres 

 on which some of these practices, principally selective cutting, are 

 carried on. 



3. Permanent ownership and organized sustained yield. Reports 

 show 92,600 acres under this type of management. Some additional 

 areas fall very little short of this classification. 



It is apparent that only a relatively small proportion of the 31,319,- 

 000 acres of privately owned forest lands other than farm woodlands 

 is under any definite mangement looking to permanent productivity. 

 The reason assigned by local observers for this condition is that past 

 cutting operatings have reduced growing stock to such a point that 

 further yields will be too long deferred to interest private owners. 



PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF FOREST PRODUCTS 



Industrial and domestic use of timber began in the Central States 

 at the same time when early settlers began destroying large quantites 

 of timber in order to clear the land for agriculture. In the course of 

 time an important manufacturing industry developed, devoted 

 especially to manufacturing lumber, furniture, and other products 

 from the hardwoods. In the agricultural portions of the region there 

 has been a large decline in the number of mills and the volume of 

 output. Many of the remaining mills have had to ship in raw materi- 

 als from the rougher portions of this region and from the bottom-land 

 hardwood lands of the Mississippi Valley. Mills throughout the 

 region continue to draw to a considerable extent, however, on local 

 sources of log supply, especially farm woodlands. Ninety percent of 

 the log supply of mills in the Corn Belt is said to come from farm 

 woodlands. 



Table 18, based on census figures and Forest Service data, shows 

 the production and consumption of lumber in these States. These 

 statistics indicate a deficit of 6,568,987 thousand board feet in 

 regional lumber production as compared with use of lumber. The 

 greater part of the deficit is in softwoods, which do not grow in much 

 of the region. 



Large quantities of other forest products are produced and consumed 

 in the region, including posts, poles, fuel wood, pulp wood, etc., but 



