1468 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



case almost 10 billion cubic feet of additional annual growth must be 

 provided to meet the estimated national needs. 



Part of this additional growth would come from the reforestation of 

 lands now idle and nonproductive; part would result from more 

 efficient protection of the forests from fire, insects, and disease, and 

 the extension of such protection to all forest lands ; part would result 

 from the stopping of forest devastation; and part would be attained 

 by the practice of intensive forestry throughout the country on a 

 large scale. 



In the discussion of the ultimate achievement of the program to 

 put all available forest lands to productive use, in the section The 

 Area Which Can and Should be Used for Forestry, it was estimated 

 that a reasonable balance in forest management would involve 

 intensive forestry on perhaps 100 million acres. Such an area would 

 probably produce about 6% billion cubic feet of timber per year. 

 Under the plan outlined in that section for simply meeting the indi- 

 cated national timber requirements, intensive forestry might be 

 needed on only 70 million acres. If the latter program is to be 

 achieved by the end of the present century, the area under intensive 

 forestry must be extended by about 1 million acres per year. This 

 may be considered the minimum objective. To achieve the program 

 suggested for complete land utilization in the same period of time 

 would require extending the area under intensive forestry by about 

 1H million acres per year. On the basis of opportunity and need, the 

 total area suggested for intensive forestry under each of the two 

 programs may be distributed by regions as follows : 



The possible means by which the needed area may be brought 

 under intensive forest management are, in a broad way, as follows: 



(a) Extension of intensive practice on existing public forests. 



(b) Acquisition by the public of private lands which in private 

 ownership are not fully productive but which may be made so if 

 brought under public control. 



(c) Demonstration on experimental areas of the economic possi- 

 bilities of intensive forestry, and education of forest-land owners to an 

 appreciation of these possibilities. 



(d) Continuation of study and stimulation of action directed 

 toward the removal of handicaps to forest management, such as 

 inequitable methods of taxation and lack of commercial insurance, 

 in order to place forestry on the same plane as other business enter- 

 prises. 



