A National Program for Forestry 



759 



consulting foresters to help them de- 

 velop good timber-management plans. 

 But large ownerships (of more than 

 50,000 acres) cover only about 14 per- 

 cent of the privately owned timber- 

 lands. Of the 345 million acres of 

 private commercial forest land, the 

 great bulk is in small holdings, averag- 

 ing less than 62 acres each. Small hold- 

 ings include 1 39 million acres in farms, 

 divided among 3.2 million farmers. 

 Another 122 million acres is held by 

 nearly one million nonfarm owners. 

 Many of these are absentee owners, 

 with whom the problem of encourag- 

 ing good forestry practice is especially 

 difficult. Most of the timberlands held 

 by farmers and other small owners are 

 in an understocked condition; rela- 

 tively few are handled with any 

 thought of producing continuous crops 

 of trees. Poor management is reflected 

 in yields and financial returns that are 

 far below potential levels. 



Under the Norris-Doxey Law, the 

 Forest Service and a number of States 

 are cooperating in a highly successful 

 but small-scale program of providing 

 on-the-ground advice and technical 

 assistance to individual farm woodland 

 owners. Such technical assistance is re- 

 sulting in greater returns to the farmer 

 from his timberland as well as improve- 

 ment in the condition of the forests. 

 The work is now carried on in some 

 600 counties. But such work is needed 

 in some 2,000 counties, on both farm 

 and nonfarm forest lands, for an ef- 

 fective attack on one of the toughest 

 phases of the Nation's forest problem 

 the small woodland, in which only 

 about 4 percent of present manage- 

 ment meets the demands of good silvi- 

 culture, and in which some 71 percent 

 of the cutting is poor or destructive. 



Other cooperative aids to private 

 owners that would help to encourage 

 better forest management include pub- 

 lic assistance in the establishment of 

 cooperative forest management and 

 marketing associations; provision for 

 long-term credit to forest owners to 

 facilitate sustained-yield management 

 and encourage rehabilitation of run- 



down forests; provision for insurance 

 on growing timber; and promotion of 

 improved systems of taxation of forest 

 lands (tax systems in some cases add 

 to the pressure for quick liquidation of 

 growing timber) . 



Such cooperative aids would help 

 forest owners make the transition from 

 destructive cutting to continuous pro- 

 duction, and would encourage them to 

 go beyond the basic standards that 

 might be required by public regulation 

 and work toward real sustained-yield 

 management. 



More tree planting. 



In the national forests, some 3,200,- 

 000 acres need planting to bring the 

 land back into productivity. In addi- 

 tion, about 1,500,000 acres are so 

 understocked that fill-in planting is 

 needed. Many more millions of acres 

 of idle, submarginal farm land and 

 nonproductive State and private wood- 

 land also need planting. The Forest 

 Service is cooperating in a small way 

 with 42 States and 2 Territories in the 

 production of forest-tree planting stock 

 for distribution to farmers. Other pub- 

 lic and private agencies also carry on 

 planting programs, but at the present 

 rate of planting by all agencies it will 

 take generations to cover all the de- 

 pleted forest land in need of reforesta- 

 tion. The Forest Service has suggested 

 an over-all planting goal, public and 

 private, of 32 million acres in 25 

 years more than a billion trees a 

 year as a reasonably adequate attack 

 on the reforestation job. 



More range improvement and re- 

 seeding. 



Research has developed techniques 

 for reseeding depleted range in several 

 western regions. Where reseeding can 

 be accomplished successfully it will not 

 only check erosion and improve water- 

 shed conditions but greatly increase 

 the grazing capacity of the range. 

 Several million acres of national forest 

 range need reseeding, as well as large 

 areas of other public and private range 

 land in the Western States. Other 

 range improvements, such as stock- 

 watering facilities, fences, and stock 



