A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1561 



what the land is now producing and can produce, how fast the for- 

 ests are being depleted and the offsetting rates of growth, and the 

 actual or potential wood requirements of the Nation. The survey 

 proposes to analyze the many physical and economic factors that 

 must be taken into account in working toward an optimum balance 

 between our timber supplies and requirements. Its findings will 

 bear directly upon the possibilities for forest use of millions ol acres 

 of reverting submarginal farm land. 



The urgent present need in relation to the survey is for an increase 

 in annual appropriations sufficient to complete the survey within the 

 shortest possible time. This need arises because of the changes that 

 are constantly taking place in the factors concerned and that will 

 adversely affect the usefulness of the results in proportion to the 

 time required to finish the work. Speed is important from a national 

 standpoint but even more so for individual regions. It is estimated, 

 for example, that the work now under way in the South, which con- 

 tains 40 percent of our forest land, can be completed in 5 years if 

 funds of $200,000 a year are applied to it. Obviously, the comple- 

 tion of the survey in this region within 5 years is greatly preferable 

 to its protraction over a period 2 or 3 times as long, which would 

 be necessary under present annual allotments. The survey has 

 already built up an organization that can be quickly and easily 

 expanded, under increased appropriations, to carry on a much larger 

 volume of work, and to carry on the work to better advantage. 



The seriousness of the economic problems to which the results of 

 the survey will apply, and the comprehensive usefulness of the results 

 to all agencies engaged in land-use planning, either nationally or from a 

 State or local standpoint, and to timberland-owning and wood-using 

 agencies, justifies as an emergency measure an immediate increase in 

 the annual appropriation to the full amount of $250,000 authorized by 

 the McSweeney-McNary Act and a still further increase, by special 

 legislative action, to $500,000. The latter increase could be fully 

 and effectively utilized by the survey by the fiscal year 1937, or even 

 sooner. 



It would be hard to conceive of a project that would contribute 

 more to the development of forest-land use or to forest industry in 

 the United States. The need to analyze and adjust our forest and 

 land-use situation, which has long been in a highly confused state, 

 has been brought into sharp focus by the present depression. In 

 normal times our forest industries support approximately 9 million 

 persons wage earners and their dependents. They involve about 

 495 million acres of commercial forest land alone, which is more than 

 the aggregate area in farm crops. 



The survey is now approaching completion in western Oregon and 

 Washington, is under way in the South, and is in progress on a small 

 scale in the Inland Empire, California, and the Lake States. In the 

 other forest regions it has not yet been started. 



As the survey is completed in each region provision should be 

 made for keeping the results current. The results can be made per- 

 manently useful only by constant adjustment in accordance with 

 current forest growth and depletion, with changes in requirements, 

 in utilization trends, and in the quantities and kinds of products 

 made available by progress in forest management and with other 

 factors. A service of this kind will require practically continuous 



