1280 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



The important southern region, still a factor in timber production, 

 has only four tenths of the growing stock needed, and cannot con- 

 tinue to furnish its quota of timber for the national needs under the 

 proposed budget on the present basis of management and intensity 

 of cutting. Even in the western regions, unless care is exercised, the 

 apparent surplus in growing stock can be dissipated unless plans for 

 careful forest management are initiated at an early date and positive 

 corrective measures taken. But under any plan there will be a short- 

 age of saw timber before an annual growth of 17.7 billion cubic feet 

 is attained unless existing information is later found to be in error. 

 The western surplus of mature timber, if well husbanded, can partially 

 bridge this gap. 



AREAS NEEDED TO SUPPLY NATIONAL TIMBER REQUIREMENTS 



A plan providing conservatively for our national timber needs, 

 outlined in the factual section already cited, sets up both the land 

 area of 508.6 acres to be used and the intensity of management, with 

 which to build up the growing stock and assure an annual production 

 equal to estimated normal requirements. In table 8 the data are 

 summarized. 



TABLE 8. Possible regional allocation, by types of management, of area available for 



timber use 



[Areas given in millions of acres] 



1 Includes the 494.9 million acres of present commercial forest area and the 54.7 million acres of farm land 

 now available for forestry, with reductions of 2 million acres of forest land to be cleared for agriculture in the 

 West and of 39 million acres for recreation and other purposes. 



2 Residual area of denuded commercial forest land and agricultural land available for timber use, after 

 allowing natural restocking of 42.9 million acres and planting of 25.5 million acres. 



PROBABLE FUTURE DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITY BETWEEN 

 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP 



The acreage required in the budget is made up of commercial 

 forests in private ownership, the farm woodlots, and abandoned agri- 

 cultural lands available for forestry. It also includes forest lands 

 now in public ownership on most of which some form of forest manage- 



