1454 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



will be particularly true in those forest regions were long-lived opera- 

 tions, even on a liquidation basis, are common. During every year 

 that a plant can operate after the period allotted for the retirement 

 of its investment, its profits are increased by nearly the amount of its 

 former depreciation charges. If the timber* for its extended operation 

 has grown on its own lands, at no other expense than that of the 

 intensive fire protection required to guard them against devastation, 

 the profits are further increased. 



Finally, it should be said that only a slight expansion of the ex- 

 tremely simple measures necessary to prevent devastation will, if 

 applied to some operations in some regions, place them on a permanent 

 basis. An example, .described at greater length under the section 

 Status and Opportunities of Private Forestry, is an industry owning 

 about 80,000 acres of timber in the Pacific Northwest. If this tract 

 is logged during the next 30 years according to the cutting practice 

 now current in the region, it is estimated by the Forest Service that it 

 will yield a profit of $450,000 over a mortgage of $3,000,000. But if 

 economic selection is applied on a basis which leaves for growth and 

 later cutting not only small trees which have no present net value, 

 but also those which have less than a very high value, the tract will 

 yield $2,800,000 over the mortgage, in the same length of time. 

 Moreover, there will then be growing on it timber enough to yield 

 50 million board feet yearly, in perpetuity. 



