A Dkckxniaj. Kkcord 131 



greatest opportunity to expand our world trade in manufactures which 

 we have ever had. It is unthinkable, I say, that, in the face of these 

 \ast requirements and opportunities, the people of the United States 

 should be content to watcli one of their essential and readily renewable 

 raw materials become 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 restric- 

 tions. 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 probable demands for farm crops, most of it indeed unfit for culti- 

 vation — an area ample to meet all of our timber requirements if its 

 timber-growing capacity is but put to use. From every hand, during 

 the last few months, we have been told to increase production as the 

 cure of our economic ills. I submit that increased production from 

 land is as necessary as increased production by human labor. The 

 idleness of millions of acres of forest-growing land may be even more 

 disastrous in its ultimate effects than the idleness of hundreds of thou- 

 sands of skilled mechanics. And we have in America today an area 

 of idle forest land equal to the combined forest of Continental Europe 

 aside from Russia. 



The answer to the forestry problem of the United States is not to 

 use less wood but to grow more — to put our idle acres of burned and 

 logged-off timber land at work growing trees. This is not inherently 

 a difficult thing to accomplish. It is not the Utopian dream of a tech- 

 nical enthusiast. Three-fourth of it fies in preventing forest fires. 

 But it does require an aggressive national policy of reforestation. It 

 requires concerted action by the national and state governments to do 

 the things which must be done by public agencies. It requires the 

 active participation of the private forest owner. It requires a clear 

 definition of public and private responsiliilities as to timber-growing 

 land, with an equitable showing of the cost. There is no phase of our 

 whole problem of an assured and perpetual supply of timber that can- 

 not be met by simple and obvious measures once the constructive effort 

 and capacity for organized cooperation of the American people are 

 put behind them. 



It is no exaggeration to say that abundant and well distributed 

 forests have been a vital factor in the prosperity of the United States. 

 It rests with us to sav whether they will continue to be, or whether we 



