1148 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



those available to private enterprises, and with operating deficits 

 justified by collateral public benefits. 



On the other hand, numerous private owners of forest lands see in 

 proposed programs of public acquisition of forest lands a new leader- 

 ship by public agencies in the field of actual silviculture; a stimulation 

 of research and experimentation through which more practical and 

 profitable principles of forest-land management and utilization will be 

 evolved and demonstrated for the common benefit of all timber- 

 productive properties. To others, the proposed public forests are 

 desired assurances of permanent sources of timber supply for estab- 

 lished wood-using industries and communities which, by supple- 

 menting the supplies from inter-related private lands, will more cer- 

 tainly guarantee and stabilize sustained timber production and 

 utilization and thus create better conditions for the private practice 

 of forestry than would prevail in the absence of the public forests. 

 Finally, other timberland owners regard the policy with favor because 

 they see in it a public willingness to assume in greater degree obliga- 

 tions of forest-land ownership which cannot be borne by private 

 owners; as a procedure by which they can, on terms equitable to all 

 interests concerned, relieve themselves of an excessive burden of 

 unliquidated stumpage by means other than destructive exploitation 

 inimical both to private and public welfare. 



The fear that the timber products of public forests will compete 

 destructively for future markets can be considered only as an abstrac- 

 tion. Such competition has not thus far assumed alarming propor- 

 tions nor does it appear to have serious future probabilities. It seems 

 wholly inconceivable that any public agency would for any length of 

 time be allowed to manage a public resource in ways destructive of 

 sound private enterprise or otherwise inimical to the best economic 

 interests of the region, State, or Nation. If any such tendency 

 developed it would promptly be corrected. Then, too, as compared 

 to private action, there is inevitably a certain inflexibility and routine 

 in any form of public management which would tend to equalize 

 advantages of tax exemption, cheaper credit, and smaller necessity for 

 affirmative financial returns. All other factors being relatively 

 equal, the greater flexibility, simplicity, and lower cost of private 

 management should enable it successfully to compete with the prod- 

 ucts of public forests. Upon types of land where this is not true, 

 where inherent disadvantages would militate against or preclude 

 successful private-forest management, the unavoidable additional 

 elements of cost of timber production should equalize whatever 

 advantages of public administration there might be. The apprehen- 

 sion that the products of public forests generally could and would 

 undersell the products of private forests lacks a valid and tenable 

 foundation. 



The future of forestry in the United States hinges largely upon the 

 development of a technique in the management of forest lands which 

 within practical limitations oncosts will most adequately realize their 

 potentialities for the production of timber commodities and related 

 economic and social services. This not only requires the full explora- 

 tion of the field of research and experimentation but also widespread 

 and systematic demonstration of the principles and methods essential 

 to highest use and their practical consequences, biologically, economi- 

 cally, and financially. Few if any private owners are prepared or 

 disposed to pioneer this field; it is peculiarly a public function. Its 



