226 AGRU'ULTURAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



where there is an nrtive demand for timher. In many of our large 

 forest areas which are inaccessible and shut off by topography, 

 lumber development is still a long way in the future and no expendi- 

 ture of this character would be justified. 



We have applications for stumpage at the present time, many of 

 them serious, some of them purely tentative, and some doubtless 

 speculative, up to a total of some 9,000.000.000 feet. A part of 

 tnese applications cover areas which have been surveyed in previous 

 years. Approximately 7.000.0()(),000 out of the 9,000.000,000 feet, 

 however, represent areas that will have to be surveyed and mapped 

 before we are in a position to fix the price intelligently and make a 

 sale. The survey of this 7,000,000,000 feet in itself would cost more 

 than the entire item for a single year. It will be necessary to select 

 out of these timber applications those which are the most promising 

 and where a sale would be most desirable from the standpoint of the 

 condition of the timber and confine our surveys to those particular 

 applications We can not at the present time keep up with the vol- 

 ume of applications for Government timber, but we can take care of 

 the most urgent ones. 



Mr. BuciiAXAN. What is your idea as to wh.ether we ought to be 

 in a rush about selling this stumpage ? 



Colonel Greeley. I do not think we should be in a terrible rush 

 to sell it. 



Mr. lircHANAX. I am of the same opinion. 



Colonel Greeley. As a matter of fact, during my two years as 

 Forester I have rejected a number of applications for national forest 

 timber. In every instance we are limitmg the cut from a national 

 forest to what it will sustain by growth and after we have reached 

 that am()unt we decline further business. Take the Coeur d'Alene 

 National Forest, in the heart of the white pine belt of northern Idaho. 

 We have found bv a close study that that forest will grow between 

 4.3,000,000 and 50,000,000 feet" a year and keep it up perpetually. 

 The annual sales are limited to that amount, although we could sell 

 out the entire forest in a couple of years if we accepted all applications. 



Mr. iiucuANAN. Do you not think the Forest Service ought to 

 have some study made and some plan evolved by which it could 

 determine how much ought to be sold and how much ought not to be 

 sold in order to conserve, as far as possible, through a sufficient 

 period of time, the timber resources of the United States^ 



C'olonel Greeley. Our policy is this: We have approximately 

 590.000,000,000 feet of merchantable timber in the national forests; 

 and \\v liiul that we can cut up to seven or eight billion feet a year and 

 nianitain that cut perpetually, probably increasing it in time. 



Mr. Ik'ciiANAN. llow much a year J 



Colonel (lUEELEY. Seven or eiglit billion feet a year, which repre- 

 sents what you might say is the interest on the capital investment. 



Mr. IktUANAX. And l<eep it up < 



Colonel Greeley. Keep it up perpetually. 



Mr. lii < HANAN. Is this sonu'thiiig which you have worked out and 

 deternnned. or are you merely studying it^ 



Cohjnel (ireeley. it is sonu'thing we are studying and checking 

 all the time; that is our best judgment to date.^ Our general aim 

 uiidor this it4'm and \uu\vv the timber sale administration is to select 

 the arras where cutting is uutst necessary on account of the condition 



