AMERICAN FORESTRY 



VOL. 28 



SEPTEMBER, 1922 



No. 345 



FORESTRY AS A BUSINESS 



B 



By George H. Rhodes 



Secretary, California Forest Protective Association 

 EFORE the advent of man, land produces in accord- grow a crop. This makes necessary an adjustment of 



After his advent, it economic conditions to meet that pecuHar fact. The first 



economic con- 

 dition to be 



ance with natural conditions. 

 gradually 

 conies under 

 cultivated or 

 controlled pro- 

 duction. 



The contin- 

 ued prosperity 

 and progress 

 of a people de- 

 pend very 

 much on the 

 use they make 

 of the land. 

 That on which 

 annual crops 

 will grow 

 comes first un- 

 der controlled 

 production and 

 c u 1 t i vation. 

 The areas 

 which will not 

 produce annual 

 crops or which 

 cannot be cul- 

 tivated are the 

 last to come 

 under c o n- 

 trolled produc- 

 tion. 



Forest and 

 grazing lands 

 form the great- 

 est part of the 

 latter areas, 

 and, as natural 

 conditions dis- 

 appear, both 

 require in- 

 creasing atten- 

 tion to insure 

 their continu- 

 ous production 

 under a cer- 

 tain necessary amount of control. Forest lands differ 

 from all other lands in the period of time necessary to 



VIRGIN PINE, FIR AND CEDAR IN CALIFORNIA 

 There are taxation units in which the stand of virgin timber is inaccessible and will not be 



operated for years, hence a yield tax "on timber would deprive 

 county of necessary annual revenue. 



dealt with is 

 the area of for- 

 est land neces- 

 sary to meet 

 the continuous 

 needs of the 

 people for for- 

 est products. If 

 the time re- 

 quired for a 

 crop to grow 

 is 100 years it 

 will require 

 100 times as 

 much land as 

 i s necessary 

 for an annual 

 crop, since only 

 one - hund- 

 redth of the 

 crop can be 

 harvested each 

 year. 



If 60 billion 

 board feet of 

 lumber are 

 needed and an 

 acre will yield 

 15 thousand 

 feet average, 

 then 4,000,000 

 acres must be 

 cut over. With 

 an annual croj) 

 this 4,000,000 

 acres could be 

 harvested 

 again the next 

 year, but with 

 timber 

 this 4,000,000 

 acres cannot be 

 harvested again until 100 years or more hence ; therefore, 

 100 times this area or at least 400,000,000 acres of forest 



the 



