1328 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



revenues. If public forests are sufficiently extended to provide 

 adequate public hunting and fishing facilities, it will be possible to 

 relieve private owners of the burden and cost of protection against 

 trespass, fire, and other losses. Under these conditions it should 

 become increasingly profitable for forest owners to build up the game 

 supply and obtain revenues from this source. 



Watershed values are generally not of a nature to yield private 

 returns except as private owners may own power sites or in some 

 States riparian rights. These sites and rights constitute on the 

 whole a resource distinct from the forest, as in the case of mineral 

 rights. These and mineral rights on some areas constitute the chief 

 reason for ownership of large forest areas but these revenues have not 

 been considered here. 



Revenues from naval stores and minor forest products are large in 

 some localities. There is no very definite basis for estimating all 

 these returns but everything considered it is probable that they 

 amount to $50,000,000 per annum on all the private forests of the 

 United States. 



SUMMARY OF COSTS AND RETURNS 



The scope of the program outlined in this report is so extensive that 

 no one agency is called upon to carry the entire responsibility. 

 Federal, State, and private agencies must be relied upon to go far 

 beyond their present activities in their respective field. It is urgent 

 that within the next 20 to 40 years the plan, with such modifications 

 as experience proves necessary, should be brought to complete 

 realization. It must be realized, however, that depleted areas cannot 

 be brought back to full production in that time. A period of 50 

 to 80 years of protection and care will be necessary to restore full 

 production. 



From the foregoing conservative estimates of returns from forests 

 handled under methods which will insure high rates of productivity, 

 it may be concluded that the forests of the United States, maintained 

 at a level of productivity sufficient to meet fully the national require- 

 ments both for timber and other services should produce a gross 

 return of about $700,000,000. This is in terms of stumpage values, 

 with a partial allowance for recreational, watershed, and other more 

 or less intangible values. It includes no allowance for the great 

 spread of industry dependent on logging, manufacturing, trans- 

 porting, selling, and utilizing forest products. After the costs are 

 deducted from the gross returns, there remains a net of $400,000,000 

 to $500,000,000 as an earning on the investment in all forest proper- 

 ties, public and private. This is sufficient to restore and sustain a 

 capitalized value in the neighborhood of $10,000,000,000 for the 

 forest resource. This resource being susceptible to continuous 

 renewal and in fact to continuous upbuilding, is thus visualized as a 

 permanent part of the national assets, supporting as long as the 

 Nation lives its quota of business activity, employment, and the 

 manifold services which no other resource can replace in full. 



