1236 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



timber, as against the estimated normal requirement of about 55 

 billion board feet. 



It has been shown that current annual timber growth on the present 

 commercial forest area, allowing neither for the withdrawals for other 

 uses outlined above nor for doubtful economic availability of any of 

 the land, is slightly less than 9 billion cubic feet, or hardly more than 

 half the probable future requirements. To increase growth to meet 

 future needs will call for a maximum effort by all agencies concerned. 

 Part of the shortage will be made up by natural restocking of available 

 lands now lying idle, part may be supplied by increasing the produc- 

 tive area still further by planting, but most of it will probably be 

 brought about by building up the existing growing stock through 

 better protection and more intensive management. Possible growth 

 under three plans of using the land available for timber production 

 is shown in table 25 of the section Present and Potential Timber 

 Resources. The first of these has no bearing on this discussion, since 

 it fails to meet either of the major objectives in land use. The second 

 was based on a possible status of forest lands under the objective of 

 putting all land to productive use and will be discussed later. The 

 third outlined a situation under the objective of simply meeting the 

 Nation's requirements for timber and other uses. The following para- 

 graphs explain the basis for suggesting the distribution of land shown 

 in the third plan as a reasonable possibility for producing the minimum 

 safe requirements in timber growth. 



INCREASE OF PRESENT PRODUCTIVE AREA BY NATURAL RESTOCKING 



AND PLANTING 



What portion of the 117.6 million acres of open agricultural land 

 and denuded forest land shown in figure 1 A will restock naturally can 

 at best be estimated only very crudely. A compilation of regional 

 estimates based on the best judgment of those who are familiar with 

 conditions in each region indicates that 42.8 million acres, or a little 

 more than one third of the whole, may be expected to restock in the 

 course of 40 or 50 years to a degree which will make eventual commer- 

 cial utilization possible. Much of this naturally restocked area will 

 bear timber of poor quality only, but eventually this may be brought 

 into a higher state of productivity. In any event all the land now 

 open should be given the same protection from fire as other forest areas 

 in order to give natural reproduction every possible encouragement. 



Further extension of the productive area by planting will be desir- 

 able and necessary. Lands restocked in this way may generally be, 

 depended upon for relatively high yields and so will contribute sub- 

 stantially toward balancing the timber budget. Considering the land 

 available for planting in each region and the relations to national and 

 local needs, an immediate program for the planting of 25.5 million 

 acres of agricultural or denuded land is deemed feasible. (See section 

 The Reforestation of Barren and Unproductive Land.) It must be 

 emphasized, however, that the planting of this area in any reasonable 

 period of time will call for the best efforts of all agencies on a scale far 

 beyond anything that has been envisioned nationally in the past. 



Even with the total of 68.3 million acres thus added to the produc- 

 tive forest area, about 49.3 million acres might still remain open and 

 nonproductive, divided between agricultural land now available for 



