A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1321 



values; and if it is in private ownership, the owner is the public 

 benefactor. The possibility of realizing returns from these less 

 tangible forest values will be considered later on. 



Forest properties held especially for timber, either as virgin forest, 

 second growth, or artificially grown stands, have so far in the United 

 States appeared unattractive as sustained revenue producers. One 

 important factor which has contributed to this is the manner in which 

 the markets for timber products have been supplied, mainly from 

 overrapid exploitation of virgin stands rather than from continuous 

 production of organized forest properties. The resulting com- 

 petitive marketing of the forest capital from the more accessible areas 

 has not only prevented conservative cutting on much of the lands in 

 private ownership, but on public forests has prevented the relatively 

 inaccessible timber from coming into production and has thus deferred 

 financial returns from it. 



If a sustained-yield policy of cutting should now be adopted on 

 virtually all private lands, the nation's timber requirements are 

 sufficient to absorb the products from all of the forests which still 

 contain a sufficient growing stock to yield a current cut of timber. 

 If there is delay in the adoption of sustained yield operations by 

 private owners on accessible areas, general application of sustained 

 yield on less accessible private and on public forests will necessarily 

 be delayed until liquidation has been completed on operations which 

 are able to monopolize present markets. 



For this reason no very definite estimate can be made of the time 

 when sustained annual yield can be extended on all privately owned 

 forests and all public forests. Probably such action will not be de- 

 layed more than 20 to 40 years. Even then the normal annual re- 

 turns from sustained yield management will come only from those 

 properties endowed with sufficient growing stock. The national 

 forests in the West with large areas of virgin stumpage and young 

 stands resulting from a quarter century of protection should be in full 

 production within 40 years. The existing national forests of the 

 East and those to be acquired in the future will entail a long process 

 of building up the growing stock. State forests will generally lack 

 sufficient growing stock and take still longer to come into production. 



Direct experience in continuous-yield forestry in the United States 

 is limited, but data for forecasting rates of forest growth and stump- 

 age values of leading species are reasonably satisfactory for most 

 regions. In table 6 the estimated gross timber returns per acre under 

 intensive and extensive timber management on public forests are ob- 

 tained by applying stumpage prices based on 1928-1930 experience 

 to the annual rates of timber production. The production rates, 

 which include a budget cut based on growth, are those presented in the 

 section of this report entitled, " Present and Potential Timber Re- 

 sources." The stumpage rates used are based on numerous regional 

 logging and milling studies as reported on table 4 of the section of this 

 report entitled, " Status and Opportunities of Private Forestry." 

 The assembled data in table 6 show the possible financial returns per 

 acre from intensive and extensive timber culture on public forests. 



Since the returns shown in table 6 are based on conservative growth 

 rates and on stumpage prices already attained, the average results 

 are likely to be conservative as applied to operations wilich will come 

 into full production some years in the future. They also apply im- 

 mediately to some of the more favorable situations. 



