414 



Canadian Forestry Maga::ine^ August-September, ip20. 



us now will be different only in de.e^ree 

 if we allow the western forests also to 

 be exhausted and are compelled to im- 

 port most of our lumber from Siberia 

 or South America. 



Doubtless the extreme conditions of 

 the present lumber markets will be re- 

 lieved in no great length of time and 

 more moderate prices will ]:)revail. The 

 outstancHng fact remains", however, that 

 lumber price levels higher than those 

 existing before the war must be expect- 

 ed because of the depletion, or approach- 

 ing depletion, of our forest regions east 

 of the (jreat Plains. We are fast losing 

 that great leveler of lumber prices, the 

 competition between different forest re- 

 gions available to a common market. The 

 scarcity of forest products of high 

 quality, cut from old growth timber, will 

 not be readily or quickly overcome. 

 'jMeantime forest depletion is going 

 steadily on uncliecked. It must lead in- 

 evitably to rising price levels under nor- 

 mal conditions. It will contribute to 

 sudden and excessive increases in lumber 

 prices in any future transportation, labor 

 or other crisis. 



Jf'hy Timber Depletion F 



The real cause of our timber depletion 

 is idle forest land. Shortages of Avood 

 have not resulterl primarily from the use 

 of our forests, but from their devasta- 

 tion The kernel of the problem lies in 

 the enormous areas of forest land which 

 are not producing the timber crops that 

 they should. There are 326 million 

 acres of cut-over timber lands bearing 

 no saw timber in the United States. Their 

 condition ranges from complete devas- 

 tation through various stages of partial 

 restocking or restocking with trees of in- 

 ferior quality, to relatively limited areas 

 which are producing timber at or near 

 their full capacity. On eighty-one mil- 

 lion acres there is practically no forest 

 growth. This is the result' of forest 

 fires and of methods of cutting which 

 destroy or prevent new timber growth. 



The area of idle or largely idle land is 

 being increased by from three to four 

 million acres annually as the cutting and 

 burning of forests continue. The en- 

 ormous area of forest land in the United 

 States not required for any other eco- 



nomic use, estimated at four hundred 

 sixty-three million acres, would provide 

 an ami)le supply of wood if it were kept 

 productive. Depletion has resulted, not 

 from using our tinilK-r resources, but 

 from failure t(j use our timber-growing 

 land. 



It is unthinkable that the United States 

 should be compelled to steadily contract 

 its use of timber — down to the level of 

 civilized existence as in the countries of 

 western Europe. We are not an oil 

 world nation. We will have millions of 

 acres of raw agricultural land to be de- 

 veloped. We still have millions of 

 homes to be built and thousands of miles 

 of T-rails to be laid. We are at the 

 threshold of the greatest opportunity to 

 expand our world trade in manufactures 

 which we have ever had. It is unthink- 

 able, I say, that in the face of these vast 

 requirements and opportunities,, the 

 people of the United States should be 

 content to watch one of their essential 

 and readily renewable raw materials be- 

 come steadily scarcer and less available ; 

 that they should accept famine prices on 

 timber as a normal condition, with en- 

 forced contractions in its use, embargoes, 

 and governmental restrictions. And 

 such a course is as unnecessary as it 

 would be disastrous. 



We have an ample area of forest 

 growing land, over and above any pro- 

 bable demands for farm crops, most of 

 it indeed unfit for cultivation — an area 

 ample to meet all of our timber require- 

 ments if its timber-growing capacity is 

 Imt put to use. From every hand, dur- 

 ing the last few months, we have been 

 told to increase production as the cure 

 of our economic ills. I submit that in- 

 creased production from land is as ne- 

 cessary as increased production by 

 human labor. The idleness of millions 

 of acres of forest growing land may be 

 even more disastrous in its ultimate ef- 

 fects than the idleness of hundreds of 

 thousands of skilled mechanics. And we 

 have in America to-day an area of idle 

 forest land equal to the combined forest 

 of Continental Europe aside from 

 Russia. 



The answer to the forestry problems 

 of the United States is not to use less 

 wood but to grow more — to put our idle 



