Canadian Foreshy journal, January, J920 



39 



AMERICA'S BIG JOB AHEAD 



Filbert Roth, Professor of Forestry, University of Michigan, 

 in the American Lumberman (Condensed). 



To Secure Timber it Will be Necessary to Start at Once a National 



Forest Policy 



Forty years ago the "experts" tod us two 

 big stories: That there was an inexhaustible 

 supply and that substitutes would rapidly re- 

 place wood. Both stories were wrong. The 

 truth, well recognized now, is that we have 

 about 2,500,000,000,000 feet of standing tim- 

 ber. The big woods decay as fast as they 

 grow; that is ,they make no net growth for us 

 to figure on. The annual cut of timber has 

 been hovering around the 40,000,000,000 mark 

 for about thirty years. We now use, and have 

 used all these years, over half of all the lumber 

 cut and used in the world. The per capita use 

 of about 400 feet of lumber increai^ed up to 

 about 1908, and has dropped slowly since. 



THE TIMBER NEEDED. 



Even if we can keep up a cut of 30,000,000,- 

 000 feet a year the expected population of 

 200,000,000 in fifty years will have 150 feet 

 b.m. per capita to use. This is about the rate 

 of consumption of timber in Germany and a 

 little more than that of Great Britain, France 

 and other industrial countries, and represents 

 the approximate minimum which any progres- 

 sive people can get on with. And when that 

 day comes, the people of the United States 

 will pay higher prices for timber than have ever 

 been paid by any people anywhere; for they 

 are used to wood and they have the money. 

 We may even bring in billions of feet of tim- 

 ber from Europe. 



The substitutes have done little more than 

 help us to find new uses, and the war has driven 

 this bugaboo out of the brush. The present 

 supplies will hold out sixty years, and by that 

 time we shall need 200,000,000 acres of real 

 forest , producing in actual yearly growth 150 

 feet of saw timber an acre; three-fourths con- 

 ifers, the oldest big enough to use, and ready 

 to cut. 



"But we can bring timber from Siberia and 

 Singapore," say some. This is nonsense, and 

 thinking people are tired of being fooled. 



So, then, the problem is here, real and big. 

 It awaits solution and not mere talk. It is 



simple but calls for work and money and above 

 all for common sense, good will and persistence. 



FORESTRY IS A BUSINESS. 



Forestry is business, and means putting woods 

 in such shape that a crop can be cut every year. 

 And whether this woods is 100 or 10,000 acres 

 the forester tries to get it into such condition 

 that he can harvest in any one year about as 

 much as grows during that year. 



To illustrate a real forest by an actual case: 



Area: 8,000 acres (round figures). 



Timber: spruce, with some beech. 



Improvements: roads, open lines for roads 

 and for protection, dividing tract into small 

 fields of from 10 to 40 acres; also houses for 

 forester and his helpers. 



Method of silviculture: cut old stands clean 

 (about 80 acres each year) ; replant next 

 spring; thin the timber on every acre once every 

 ten years; in any one year, then, about 800 

 acres. 



Age: when ripe timber is cut, about 100 

 years. 



Harvested in 1908: 630.000 cubic feet of 

 ripe timber from 80 acres; 340,000 cubic feet 

 from thinnings. Total, 970,000 cubic feet of 

 wood. 



Cash income, gross: over $80,000 a year. 



Net income : over $50,000 a year. 



Pays out in expenses, chiefly labor, about 

 $30,000 a year. 



The boss is a college bred man ; he has maps 

 and books, and every ten years his whole tract 

 IS inspected, re-estimated (new inventory), and 

 a new plan made for it. His helpers are in the 

 forest every day, rain or shine. 



This is forestry, and it works and has worked 

 for several centuries. It pays; it has taken 

 land worth, say, $20 an acre and made a pro- 

 perty worth over $200 an acre. It yields taxes 

 higher than do most of our farms. 



FORESTRY AND FARMING. 



But central Europe has proved by centuries 

 of success that forestry works; that it beats the 

 farm in relative effectiveness. The farm in 



