FOREST POLICY. 73 



to offset the loss of productive land through the growth of 

 cities, and will at best supply only a small part of the additional 

 area needed for raising farm crops. In the West, except in 

 a few places along the Pacific coast, the forest areas will not 

 be reduced, for the simple reason that the land there is not 

 suitable on the whole for agricultural purposes. If it were 

 reduced, the result would be to reduce the farm land lying 

 below, which is dependent upon irrigation. The additional agri- 

 cultural land must come, therefore, chiefly from the East through 

 improvement of the present unimproved farm land and swamp 

 land and at the expense of the forest land proper. 



The forest area will be confined more and more to land 

 which is clearly unsuitable for agriculture, and which can best 

 be utilized in producing trees. This absolute forest land as 

 we may call it, will occupy, as far as one may judge, about 

 360,000,000 acres, or nearly one-fifth of the total land surface. 

 Of this about 63 per cent, or 12 per cent of the whole land 

 area of the United States will be in the West and 37 per cent, 

 or 7 per cent of the land surface of the country, in the East. 

 In the East this land will be found mainly in New England and 

 in the Adirondack region of New York; in eastern and northern 

 Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, and Michigan ; along the Al- 

 legheny and Cumberland plateaus; in the Blue Ridge and Smoky 

 mountains in the States of Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia; 

 in the Middle West, in the Ozark region of Missouri and Ar- 

 kansas and in the far West, along the Rockies and the Pacific 

 coast mountains." 



The forest areas of the various countries, per one hundred in- 

 habitants, are given in circular 159, Forest Service, as follows: 



