Today and Tomorrow 



FOREST LAND AND TIMBER RESOURCES 



C. EDWARD BEHRE 



NE OF EVERY THREE ACRES 



in the United States is forest land. 

 The forests are important in all re- 

 gions except the Great Plains, but even 

 there they occupy almost 10 percent, of 

 the land. After more than 300 years of 

 settlement, three-fourths of New Eng- 

 land is classified as forest land. Five- 

 sixths of the Douglas-fir region, on the 

 other side of the country, is in forest. In 

 the South, more than half of all the 

 land is chiefly valuable for forests. 



That is enough ultimately to grow 

 all the timber products we need, with 

 a margin for export, new uses, and na- 

 tional security if it is properly man- 

 aged. But our forests are not now in 

 condition to meet prospective needs. 



The acreage of forest land is not 

 likely to change much from the present 

 624 million acres. For the most part, 

 today's forest land is that which has 

 proved unsuited for agriculture be- 

 cause of roughness, stoniness, poor 

 soils, aridity, or other circumstances. 



Above: A mill worker scales logs; just 

 so we measure our lumber supply. 



It includes much worn-out or low- 

 grade land that at one time or an- 

 other has been cultivated. Additional 

 acres of the poor cropland are likely to 

 revert to forest use, but some of the 

 better lands now in forests will be 

 cleared for agriculture. There will also 

 be reductions for urban development, 

 construction of highways, and other 

 facilities, but these will not be large. 



About three-fourths of the forest 

 land, 461 million acres, is classed as 

 "commercial," capable now or pros- 

 pectively of growing merchantable 

 timber, and available for that use. The 

 remainder, 163 million acres, classed 

 as "noncommercial" because it is not 

 suitable and not available for timber 

 growing, is important for watershed, 

 range, and other services. Mostly in the 

 West and the plains of Texas and Ok- 

 lahoma, it includes, for example, the 

 open-grown mesquite and pinyon- 

 juniper lands of the Southwest, the 

 chaparral in southern California, and 

 alpine mountain forests. Included also 

 are some 13 million acres of better sites 



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