A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1465 



the entire area, and the stand was left in condition for much more 

 satisfactory growth. Without roads such an operation would have 

 been impossible . 



The possibilities are further illustrated by Forest Service cost 

 studies made on the property of one of the largest lumber operators on 

 the Pacific coast, who is planning a system of permanent truck roads. 

 The studies indicate that the saw timber, which the owner intends to 

 harvest by a system of economic selective cutting, will liquidate the 

 cost of these roads, their maintenance, and the interest on the invest- 

 ment during the life of the saw-timber operation in addition to 

 bringing a profit greater than could have been realized by the usual 

 method of cut out and get out. The permanent roads, entirely 

 liquidated, wih 1 then enable the operator to make, without any trans- 

 portation charges, thinnings and cuttings that will unquestionably 

 yield a greater volume of material than he could have recovered with- 

 out permanent roads and that will leave his growing stock in better 

 condition. 



Whenever forest roads are built, whatever the primary purpose, 

 they should be constructed with a view to making the largest possible 

 area available for cheap exploitation and transportation of forest 

 products. Some forest areas, like portions of the southern pineries 

 and of the ponderosa pine forests, are so open that lack of secondary 

 roads is not serious, but in many parts of the country lack of trans- 

 portation in the forest zone is retarding effective utilization of mature 

 timber and preventing silvicultural treatment that would improve 

 the forest. 



NEED FOR INTENSIVE FORESTRY 



In the section Present and Potential Timber Resources and also 

 in the section The Probable Future Distribution of Forest Land 

 Ownership it was pointed out that in the natural course of events 

 intensive forestry may be expected to develop on certain areas 

 simultaneously with the application of extensive forestry on other 

 areas and with the extension of simple protection to cover adequately 

 all forest lands. The Federal Government, a few of the States, several 

 communities, and some of the more progressive public-service com- 

 panies and other private owners are already applying intensive meas- 

 ures on at least part of their properties in order to realize more com- 

 pletely the potential production of the land. Although the areas 

 under such management at present do not constitute a very impressive 

 total, they are scattered throughout almost all the important timber 

 types of the country and represent a wide variety of soils, topography, 

 and economic conditions. We may expect that the proportion of the 

 total timber-production area under intensive management will 

 increase considerably as the need for intensive forestry becomes more 

 clearly recognized. 



Intensive forestry is needed to produce the better-quality materials 

 which are likely to be especially scarce in the future. Under pre- 

 vailing practices, second-growth timber is usually cut at a relatively 

 early age and yields very little material of high quality or large dimen- 

 sion's. Usually, because of its poor quality, lumber cut from second- 

 growth stands is for the most part useful only for ordinary rough 

 construction. Only a small fraction of the total goes into millwork 



