GETTING EVIDENCE ON FORESTRY NEEDS 



A LL sides of the forestry situation have been heard 

 -^*- and discussed by the National Forest Policy Com- 

 mittee of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States 

 which early in August completed a tour of the East 

 and West to gather information in order to make a report 

 on the need of forestry legislation. 



Meetings were held in New York, Chicago, Minne- 

 apolis, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Portland and San Fran- 

 cisco. At these meetings foresters, lumbermen and others 

 testified and the committee returns with a great fund of 

 valuable information. Its report is awaited with unusual 

 interest on account of the effect it will have upon Con- 

 gress in its consideration of forestry legislation. 



A particularly gratifying feature of the hearings is 

 expressed by Chairman D. L. Goodwillie, of the com- 

 mittee, who says : 



"It is indeed significant that with Oregon and Wash- 

 ington owning fifty per cent of the remaining standing 

 timber in the United States, the lumbermen operating 

 in these forests have expressed with such clearness and 

 vision their willingness to co-operate with the federal and 

 state governments in making these forests permanent. 

 Our conference showed clearly that the far-sighted lum- 

 bermen of this district feel the time is here when a na- 

 tional forestry policy must be formulated not in response 

 to local demands alone, but to the larger demands of 

 the nation. The national forestry question has been 

 brought to the fore by the predicament of states like 

 Pennsylvania, which at one time was a great exporter 

 of lumber, but today imports ninety per cent; by the 

 serious shortage of pulp wood in New England, and of 

 hardwoods in numerous industries. While types of for- 

 ests, fire hazard and methods of logging vary in the dif- 

 ferent districts, the interdependence of our great indus- 

 tries on supplies of lumber and timber from all sections 

 makes this a national problem." 



Members of the committee expressed themselves as 

 being surprised with the steps which the lumbermen of 

 the Northwest have already taken along lines of fire pro- 

 tection. Also at the evident willingness of the lumber- 

 men to co-operate with those in the East who are desirous 

 of developing a national policy. Some of the committee 

 had been led to understand that the attitude of the North- 

 west was anything but friendly to this idea. 



Col. W. B. Greeley, United States forester, at the Chi- 

 cago meeting gave a remarkable presentation of the en- 

 tire forestry situation in the United States. He pointed 

 out that we are cutting timber four times as fast as we are 

 growing it and that 61 per cent of all the remaining tim- 

 ber in the United States is west of the Great Plains. 

 Fifty per cent of all hardwood is in the southern Mis- 

 sissippi States ; 61 per cent of all the remaining softwood 

 is on the Pacific Coast. 



He said the burden of increased freight expense is ex- 

 emplified by the fact that Chicago alone pays yearly $22,- 



500,000 for extra freight expense on lumber as compared 

 with what the freight on the same amount of lumber 

 would have cost thirty years ago. 



"This expense might have been obviated," said Col. 

 Greeley, "had the great timber states in the northern 

 part of the Mississippi Valley applied the principles of 

 forestry in former years, for there are millions of acres 

 of barren lands and lands with poor stands of timber 

 in these states which would now be producing forests 

 had forestry been practiced at the right time. 



"Some day we must pay the bill and at far greater 

 cost than if we start at once to develop our forests. The 

 mounting expense of higher freight due to transporting 

 the lumber for greater distances might better be applied 

 to developing our forests nearer at hand." 



A. L. Osborn and C. H. Worcester raised the question 

 regarding the effect on the lumber industry because of 

 their having to cut forests on certain regulations, pointing 

 out that an increase amounting to $2 in the cost would 

 practically be equivalent to confiscation. 



Col. Greeley declared that the cost would be passed 

 on to the public, but Mr. Worcester did not agree, stating 

 that the cost of producing lumber unfortunately did not 

 control the price. 



Col. Greeley said that the experience of the government 

 in its own forests where forestry methods have bean 

 applied, furnished a rough basis for comparison. He- 

 thought that an average figure of $1 per thousand might 

 cover the cost. As 52,000,000,000 feet of timber are 

 used in the United States every year, this would mean a 

 total extra cost to the public of only $52,000,000, 

 which as it would be equally distributed, would be an 

 insignificant tax to pay for the preservation of our 

 forests. 



As a safeguard to the lumbermen. Col. Greeley ad- 

 vanced the idea of the commission used by Sweden. Com- 

 missions of this type, representative both of the lumber- 

 men and the public, would be set up in the individual 

 states and would hear special cases of complaint regard- 

 ing unreasonable regulation and provision could be made 

 for appeal from the findings. 



Prof. Filibert Roth, Dean of the Forestry School, Uni- 

 versity of Michigan, predicted economic disaster unless 

 the government take steps immediately to create forests. 

 He cited the experiences of European countries. Ger- 

 many was originally a forest land but permitted her for- 

 ests to become brush lands and it took her six centuries 

 to restore the forests. It is his idea that in the very 

 nature of things, timber should be grown by the public. 

 He insisted that the extra expense of changing our meth- 

 ods of lumbering and growing new forests should be 

 borne by the public. He advocated a constitutional 

 amendment which would give to the federal government 

 unquestioned police power to regulate the forests in the 

 states. 



