1152 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



prospective timber requirements and thus vested in private ownership 

 considerable areas of heavily timbered lands for whose products there 

 is no economic necessity either at present nor within the next decade 

 or more. The time will arrive when such timber will be indispensable 

 to economic and social welfare and all considerations of public interest 

 dictate that it shall be preserved from wasteful exploitation until that 

 time, but at present the tendency of all but a small minority of the 

 present owners of such timber is to follow a policy of quick liquidation 

 notwithstanding the obvious fact that such a policy is uneconomic 

 and against the highest public and private interest. 



Just prior to the beginning of the century the belief prevailed that 

 the timber requirements of the Nation would soon equal and shortly 

 thereafter exceed the total available supply. In such circumstances 

 large increases in stumpage values seemed inevitable. Nevertheless, 

 stumpage then was relatively cheap and large areas of heavily timbered 

 public land were easily obtainable at trifling expense. Costs of 

 ownership were low. In consequence, a tremendous wave of private 

 acquisition of timbered lands developed and continued for a decade 

 or more. Single ownerships embraced scores and hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of the finest timber on the continent. In general, 

 the movement was motivated by speculative considerations. 



The ensuing financial situation offered many opportunities to 

 capitalize stumpage values which by force of other circumstances 

 tended to increase with each passing year. Timber bonds were 

 readily salable, loans readily obtainable. Invested capital demanded 

 current returns. Meanwhile costs of State and county government 

 not only increased but multiplied as need arose for more and better 

 highways, schools, public buildings, and other forms of public service. 

 Year by year the capital investment in the properties not only increased 

 but more incessantly demanded at least partial liquidation. To 

 accomplish that, mills, logging railroads, and other facilities for 

 manufacture were imperative, these in turn adding largely to the 

 capital investments pressing for current returns. As the invested 

 value per unit of stumpage increased, its more effective protection 

 against destruction by fire, disease, insects, etc., demanded heavier 

 annual outlays. Through these several circumstances private forest 

 ownership has tended in some sections to assume the proportions of 

 an inverted pyramid, with no greater degree of stability and no 

 greater assurance against eventual collapse. Getting the money out 

 of the trees and into the bank seemed the one feasible method by which 

 collapse could be averted. But to accomplish that a market for the 

 timber was absolutely essential and demand was smaller than tem- 

 porary supply. 



The situation described, has in substantial measure now run its 

 course. It was least acute in the New England States and the 

 Appalachian region. In the southern pine region it has gone so far 

 that the remaining timber stands are not greatly in excess of operating 

 requirements, and to some degree a reaction has set in favorable to 

 a new order of private forest-land management based on small capital 

 investments in well stocked second-growth lands. In the Lake States 

 the cycle is so nearly complete that the forest problem largely is one of 

 regenerating cut-over lands, generally as a public function but with 

 limited participation by private agencies such as the pulp and paper 

 manufacturers whose large fixed investments will justify substantial 



