Forest Land and Timber Resources 



719 



this class of ownership is held by the in- 

 dustries themselves is not known. The 

 lumber and pulp companies, however, 

 own only 15 percent of the private 

 commercial forest land. Plainly, good 

 management of the industrial timber 

 holdings, although essential, will not of 

 itself provide an adequate supply of 

 timber products. 



THE CRUX of the country's forest 

 problem is the continued shrinkage and 

 deterioration of forest growing stock. 



Annual growth of saw timber is now 

 estimated at 35.3 billion board feet, 

 and of all timber at 13.4 billion cubic 

 feet. More than half of the saw-timber 

 growth is in the South. Only one-fourth 

 is in the North, although the North has 

 almost as much commercial forest land 

 as the South. The remaining one-fifth 

 is in the West. Timber growth in the 

 West may be expected to increase as 

 the two-fifths of the commercial forest 

 land still in virgin timber, making little 

 or no net growth, is converted by cut- 

 ting to effectively growing forest. 



The current estimate of saw-timber 

 growth is 3.3 billion board feet greater 

 than the 1938 estimate. Most of the 

 difference may be due to the nature of 

 the estimates rather than to actual 

 changes. As a matter of fact, only for 

 the Lake States and the South are the 

 estimates comparable. In the Lake 

 States, saw-timber growth dropped 24 

 percent in 10 years (the decline was 

 more acute for softwoods than hard- 

 woods) and the total cubic-foot growth 

 declined 13 percent. 



In the South, saw-timber growth is 

 3 percent greater than it was 10 years 

 ago. But the net increase of 622 mil- 

 lion board feet is the result of an in- 

 crease of 886 million board feet (12 

 percent) of hardwoods and a decrease 

 of 264 million board feet (2 percent) 

 of softwoods. Similarly, two-thirds of 

 a 9-percent increase in the all-timber 

 growth in the South was in hardwoods. 

 These figures are further evidence of 

 the replacement of the more desirable 

 pine by hardwoods; they really reflect 

 deterioration rather than building up. 



Forest drain, or the volume taken 

 by cutting and by fire and other de- 

 structive agents, included 53.9 billion 

 board feet of saw timber in 1944. 

 This was the equivalent of 80 percent 

 of the all- timber drain of 13.7 billion 

 cubic feet. Although domestic use of 

 wood was sharply reduced because of 

 the war, saw- timber drain in 1944 was 

 more than 6 billion board feet above 

 that in 1936, the year of the last pre- 

 vious comprehensive estimate. With 

 the great industrial activity of the post- 

 war period, lumber cut in 1947 was 

 some 3 billion board feet more than in 

 1944. This would put forest drain close 

 to the level attained in the peak war 

 years 1941 and 1942. 



In 1944, saw-timber drain from the 

 South (25 billion board feet) was 25 

 percent greater than that from the 

 West (20 billion board feet). Because 

 of the advanced stage of depletion in 

 the North (which limits the opportu- 

 nity for timber industries) only 17 per- 

 cent of the saw-timber drain came 

 from that section. 



Lumber, by far the largest item, 

 made up about 70 percent of the saw 

 timber and 55 percent of the cubic- 

 foot cutting drain. Fuel wood made up 

 18 percent of the cutting drain, mostly 

 in the East and about two-thirds in 

 hardwoods. Pulpwood, a rapidly in- 

 creasing element of drain, accounted 

 for 11 percent of cut in 1944, largely 

 because of the expansion of the pulp 

 and paper industry in the South. 



That saw-timber drain exceeds an- 

 nual growth by 50 percent is perhaps 

 the most challenging fact in our forest 

 situation today. It is a measure of the 

 rate at which we are overdrawing our 

 forest bank account. If the 1944 trend 

 were continued with no changes in 

 forest practices for 20 years (which is 

 highly improbable because scarcity of 

 suitable accessible timber will make it 

 increasingly difficult for the forest in- 

 dustries to sustain output at the 1944 

 rate) the saw-timber stand would drop 

 27 percent. 



In the South, continuation of the 

 1944 cut and prevailing forest prac- 



