A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1595 



For many years the Federal and many State governments have 

 tried to make it possible for private owners to retain their forest lands 

 and to keep them in productive condition. The public has extended 

 financial a ad other aid in many forms and in fairly large amounts to 

 the private forest landowner. It has refrained from asserting in 

 any sweeping manner, its presumable legal power to regulate the use 

 of private property so as to prevent injury to the public interest. 

 It has assisted both by what has and has not been done, and has 

 generally left the private owner a free hand in the management of his 

 property. 



This program has failed to halt destructive treatment of private 

 forest lands. Whatever the reasons for continuing depletion, both 

 the public interest in productive lands, and the private interest in the 

 perpetuation of natural resources as a source for private business have 

 suffered markedly. The program has even failed to keep all forest 

 land in private ownership, as the continuing abandonment through 

 tax delinquency testifies. This report estimates that perhaps 162 

 million acres of private commercial forest land will eventually be 

 transferred out of private and into public ownership, much of it 

 because it has deteriorated to the point of lack of opportunity in 

 timber growing. 



This report proposes that public agencies continue aid to private 

 forest landowners on an increased scale. It proposes that the lands 

 unattractive to private ownership be acquired and managed as 

 public forests. It proposes no immediate country-wide attempt 

 to regulate the use of private forest land. It proposes the extension 

 of Federal credit at low interest as a means to stabilize individual 

 forest business. It proposes to take over the overloads of private 

 stumpage which are forcing overrapid liquidation and cut- throat 

 competition. Back of all these and other proposals, is frank recogni- 

 tion of the fact that forestry on private lands must have a chance to 

 yield profits comparable to those to be made on other classes of invest- 

 ments involving similar risks. 



The report proposes, in short, to leave to private ownership some of 

 the best of the opportunities to practice industrial forestry, unencum- 

 bered by regulatory costs or by poor or depreciated forest lands. The 

 report proposes that the public interest in all but a part of the better 

 private lands be protected through public ownership, with complete 

 assumption of costs. 



These proposals aim to get at the real basis of many of the imme- 

 diate ills of the forest-products industries, and to leave to private 

 ownership the opportunity to perpetuate itself and redeem the public 

 interest through: 



(1) Kational treatment of forest land. 



(2) Planned and orderly utilization of forest products. 



The report thus assumes that as public action leaves to private 

 ownership a genuine industrial opportunity, intelligent self-interest 

 will lead to acceptance of it. A transition period will necessarily 

 be required for final stabilization of ownership everywhere. But 

 when the suggested realinement of ownership is completed, private 

 ownership is counted on to produce 50 percent of the timber required 

 to balance the national timber budget. 



The program for private owners assumes that approximately 261 

 million acres of commercial forest lands and 32 million acres of 



