A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1463 



destructively on the bark of forest trees as to cause serious loss of 

 forest material and forest productivity. Such pests must be controlled 

 on areas designated for intensive forestry. Less conspicuous, but 

 perhaps equally serious, is the damage done by the small rodents that 

 feed on seeder seedlings, often materially retarding natural regenera- 

 tion or ruining plantations. Intensive forestry may in some cases 

 necessitate artificial control of these pests. 



IMPROVED UTILIZATION 



Under the conditions usually surrounding commercial timber oper- 

 ations at present, it is not possible to remove all the usable material 

 at a profit. Considerable portions of the felled trees are left in the 

 woods unutilized. Other trees containing usable material are left 

 standing, not as the nucleus for a future cutting, but simply because 

 of lack of development of economic outlets, and being a prey to fire 

 and wind are usually wholly wasted. Still more wood is lost to use 

 in the process of manufacturing. It should be the aim of intensive 

 forestry to counteract this waste. If the forest and individual trees 

 are imperfectly utilized, a larger area must be cut over to supply the 

 country's requirements. This waste of the forest resource is due in 

 some regions, notably in the Pacific Northwest, to exploiting timber 

 that is not " economically ripe" and to clear cutting extensive areas 

 containing trees of high, medium, and low value at a time when 

 market conditions justify cutting the high-value stumpage only. It 

 is estimated that a third of the volume of the Pacific Northwest timber 

 felled in the last 10 years has been handled at a loss. It is felt that 

 economic selective logging, where physically possible, will go a long 

 way toward avoiding the felling of trees that should not be felled and 

 improving the utilization of those that are felled. 



More frequently inability to utilize timber resources fully at a 

 profit is due to failure to develop means for the manufacture or 

 marketing of all the products. Some sawmill operators, for example, 

 are concerned solely with the production of sawlogs of conifers and 

 ignore the possibilities of cutting poles, pulpwood, posts, firewood, or 

 other minor products. This is something that intensive forestry 

 should correct by developing a market for all products, integrating all 

 the wood-using industries, and then assuring that where cutting is 

 done utilization will be complete. Notable progress has been made 

 in the last decade or two, particularly in the East, the South, and the 

 Lake ^ States, in attaining better forest utilization through the up- 

 building of wood-using industries, the introduction of various pulping 

 processes, an increase in the efficiency of small mills, and the introduc- 

 tion of conversion processes for chemicals, fuels, and other by-products. 

 In regions of heavy forest depletion where wood-manufacturing plants 

 have closed down the local agricultural or urban communities have 

 come to use less wood, and the markets for such supplies of forest 

 material as do exist have been lost. This prevents good use of the 

 forest and its by-products. The maintenance of well-integrated 

 forest industries will help to restore a market for forest products that 

 in turn will promote intensive forestry. 



A development of utilization technic, through research or otherwise, 

 that will find a market for all species of woods and dimensions of 

 lumber will make possible a closer use of the forest, the sale of thin- 



168342 33 vol. 2 27 



