1430 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



and disease has been discussed in the immediately preceding sections 

 of this report, and it will be assumed in the present one that a high 

 degree of such protection is being given to all forest lands. 



Logging alone may devastate important areas of forest land, in 

 addition to supplying the fuel for slash fires. (Logging, as the term 

 is here used, includes not only the felling and removal of the timber, 

 but also disposal of the slash; it covers removal of other products as 

 well as logs.) Such modifications of logging as are necessary to pre- 

 vent devastation are by no means always costly. On the contrary, 

 under many circumstances they may result in a very substantial 

 saving to the logger, and in the long run increase the return to the 

 landowner. Painstaking studies conducted by the Forest Service 

 and others in most of the important forest regions agree in showing 

 that there are diameter limits below which trees cannot be cut and 

 manufactured into lumber at a profit. Where such trees are left for 

 seed, this measure to prevent devastation represents a saving of loss in 

 operation rather than an added expense. Just as there may be 

 "boarder" cows in a dairy herd, and " boarder" hens in a flock, that 

 do not produce enough milk or eggs to pay for their keep, so there may 

 be "boarder" logs in a sawmill. Such logs have cost more to cut 

 and bring to the mill, and will cost more to saw into lumber, than can 

 possibly be recovered from the sale of their products. Boarder logs 

 should be left standing in the trees. Moreover, trees only a little 

 above the diameter limit of present-day merchantability will often 

 grow so rapidly in size and value, if left standing when their neighbors 

 are cut, as to be worth much more to their owners on the stump than 

 in the mill. "Economic selection" of trees to be cut, based on full 

 knowledge of their present and probable future value, will leave most 

 of the logged-off land in the United States well above the devastated 

 class. Data steadily accumulate to show that the all- too-common 

 practice of clear cutting not only devastates most forest land, but 

 reduces profits and costs money. The fuller discussion of costs which 

 concludes this section will substantiate these statements. 



Devastation by logging is not permitted on the national forests, 

 or on most other publicly owned land. The following description of 

 the measures other than general fire ^ protection necessary to keep 

 forest land productive after logging is therefore confined to those 

 forest regions where there is an appreciable amount of private forest 

 land now being logged. In order to give a clear picture not only of 

 the measures required but of the reasons for them, the more important 

 forest types are treated separately. The great bulk of the informa- 

 tion is quoted verbatim from the series of Department of Agriculture 

 bulletins entitled "Timber Growing and Logging Practice" in each 

 of a dozen forest regions, or from summaries of these bulletins brought 

 up to date by further studies. 



In addition to thoroughgoing fire protection given all forest land, 

 the measures chiefly needed to prevent devastation of forest land are : 



1. Preservation of young seedling growth already on the ground 

 at the time of logging, or of such seed-bearing trees as are needed to 

 reforest the land after logging. This requires care in felling and 

 other steps in the logging to prevent injury or destruction of the 

 advance growth and unmerchantable trees of valuable species; and 

 in some cases deliberate reservation from cutting of merchantable 

 seed trees, and their preservation in the subsequent logging, In 



