A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1453 



This figure, although necessarily an estimate, is based on a careful 

 consideration of the many factors involved. The cost of specific 

 measures, per thousand board feet, or per acre, have already been dis- 

 cussed under each of the major forest types. Figures given in the 

 section Present and Potential Timber Resources, covering timber cut 

 yearly for commodity use from the forests of the United States, 

 supplemented by local Forest Service information as to stands per 

 acre on lands currently logged, furnished the other factors necessary 

 to the estimate. Where certain measures, such as slash disposal 

 in the western white pine forests, have already been adopted by some 

 of the operators in a region, because such action saves them money 

 in the long run quite regardless of the future of their cut-over land, 

 the type or regional cost is correspondingly reduced. If it were 

 certain rather than probable that the remaining operators would find 

 that the same measures pay, obviously no charge should be included 

 in the regional costs. Their inclusion makes the total an overestimate 

 rather than an underestimate. The same effect is produced by 

 including the present value of timber reserved for seed, even though 

 on a great many operations this value will be more than recovered 

 in later cuttings. On the other hand an item of possible consequence 

 which had to be omitted from the total because it could not be even 

 approximated, was the cost of postponing final cutting in some 

 eastern hardwood stands. 



Whether the exact cost of stopping devastation of private forest 

 lands would be somewhat over or under $5,700,000, it is clear that 

 the sum involved is, nationally speaking, insignificant. It is about 

 1 percent of the sum spent annually in the forests of the United 

 States to obtain the raw material logs, cordwood, and other prod- 

 ucts necessary for our forest industries. 



Throughout the previous pages it has been stated that modifica- 

 tion of logging methods to prevent devastation does not always 

 involve a net loss. Economic selection, which was described as an 

 important step in such modification in nearly every region, bars 

 " boarder" logs from the sawmill, and saves money to the operator. 

 The sums which a strict application of economic selection might save 

 the forest industries in some regions is enormous. On the basis of 

 selective logging studies at the Pacific Northwest Forest Experiment 

 Station it is estimated that one third of the lumber cut in the last 10 

 years in the Douglas-fir region was obtained from trees too small to 

 have a positive conversion value, and that the average loss per thou- 

 sand board feet was at least $1. Assuming a normal production of 10 

 billion board-feet a year, the cost of cutting these small trees and 

 thereby devastating a large part of the forest land on which they grew, 

 is over $3,300,000 yearly. The sum is nearly twice as great as the 

 estimated cost of stopping devastation or private lands in the same 

 region. Although the savings possible in other regions are not so 

 readily calculable, it is certain that they would be substantial, and 

 that would go far toward meeting the cost of stopping devastation, if 

 not actually exceeding it. 



It should be emphasized that stopping devastation may have results 

 reaching far beyond the mere assurance that a forest industry will not 

 have on its hands a perplexing cut-over land problem, when it has 

 completely utilized its present raw material. A common result will 

 be extension of operating life and a great addition to profits. This 



