HOW TO STOP FOREST DEVASTATION 



By R. D. FORBES, Director Allegheny Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction and summary 1429 



Measures to be applied in western forests 1431 



Douglas fir type 1431 



Western larch western white pine type 1435 



Sugar pine-ponderosa pine type 1439 



Ponderosa pine type 144 1 



Other western types 1443 



Measures to be applied in eastern forests 



Longleaf -slash pine type 1444 



Shortleaf -loblolly pine-hardwoods type 1445 



Other eastern types 1446 



Net cost of preventing devastation on private forest lands 1451 



INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 



An earlier section of this report, Current Forest Devastation and 

 Deterioration, states that over 850,000 acres of forest land in the 

 United States are yearly added by fire, logging, and other causes to at 

 least 60 million acres already devastated. It describes the deteriora- 

 tion that has taken place on an overwhelming proportion of the 

 remainder of the 10 million acres annually cut over, in recent years. 

 It makes clear, in short, that hi spite of the increasingly effective 

 efforts of the past 30 to 40 years to protect and renew the forest of 

 this country, not only thousands but millions of acres that were 

 productive in January of this year will be unproductive, or at best 

 less productive, in December. Long-continued fire protection is 

 making possible a gradual return of the forest to some areas earlier 

 devastated partly, at least, compensating for the current devasta- 

 tion but the process is extremely slow. 



Devastated land has been defined as land that, without artificial 

 restocking, will not produce a commercially valuable crop of timber 

 within a tree generation. The major cause of devastation is unques- 

 tionably fire. Fire in some parts of the United States is capable of 

 reducing a green and productive forest to a charred waste, and 

 consuming the very soil that might otherwise have nourished a new 

 forest sprung from wind-blown or animal- transported seed. When 

 fire runs through the wreckage of stumps, unutilized branches, dis- 

 carded logs, broken and uprooted trees, that is the aftermath of com- 

 mercial logging in the great majority of forests, it is almost certain 

 to destroy the young tree growth already present, as well as such 

 seed-bearing trees as may have been left standing by the loggers. 



Although fire is the greatest single cause of forest devastation, 

 other major causes are insects, disease, unregulated logging, and 

 unregulated grazing. The timber-destroying bark-beetles of the 

 West, and chestnut blight in the East, are familiar examples of the 

 first two of these devastating agents. Protection against fire, insects, 



1429 



