1278 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



acres of abandoned agricultural land, and 47 million acres of woodland 

 on farms, a total of 212 million acres. 



The method of estimating used goes at the problem from the angle 

 of what lands the public will need to take care of because they are 

 no longer attractive to private ownership. But clearly, the magnitude 

 of the public acquisition job should also be estimated from the direc- 

 tion of what is needed to insure realization of the public purposes of 

 timber supply, watershed protection, recreation, and wild life. Esti- 

 mates of public ownership for these purposes are made in the 

 following pages. 



TABLE 7. Possible future distribution of ownership of commercial woodland 



on farms 



1 Assuming percentage of farm woodlands to public ownership will equal percentage of private industrial 

 forest to public ownership. (See table 5.) 



PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND TIMBER PRODUCTION 

 PRESERVATION OF GROWING STOCK A VITAL CONSIDERATION 



Because of their relation to the question of ultimate ownership of 

 forest lands, it may be well to review here a few of the more pertinent 

 findings in the detailed discussion of growing stock given in an earlier 

 factual section, "Present and Potential Timber Resources." Among 

 these is the certainty that forest land with balanced distribution of 

 saw timber, second growth, cordwood, and smaller age classes can be 

 made to contribute indefinitely and in a very large way to the Nation's 

 economic welfare. So far in our national history, we have merely 

 been harvesting the stored up old growth of centuries past, and as 

 this has disappeared we have proceeded with the next process, cutting 

 heavily and repeatedly into the usually inferior volunteer second 

 growth and cordwood stands. Excepting where the most destructive 

 forces have been permitted to sweep a forest, some kind of forest 

 growth has followed, even where unregulated cutting or promiscuous, 

 uncontrolled fires have taken place, but with serious impairment of 

 forest values. This process cannot continue indefinitely without 

 depleting the forest capital the growing stock that is the sole base 

 on which saw timber can be produced and without depreciating the 

 forest soil that influences the growth rate of the timber crops. The 



