PRIVATE FORESTRY IN FRANCE 



143 



but it illustrates the trend of public forest policy in 

 France. 



Private forestry is, of course, on a totally different 

 footing in France than in the United States. The dense 

 population of France has of necessity brought about a 

 relatively high value and a relatively intensive use of all 

 classes of land. The shortage and high cost of timber 

 products have given an economic impetus to the practice 

 of forestry by private land owners which is approached 

 in but limited parts of the United States. Notwithstand- 

 ing the economic basis for forestry in France, which 

 makes the growing of timber reasonably profitable, not- 

 withstanding also her intensive demands for farm crops, 

 France has found it necessary to place her forests under 

 special protection and to enact special laws restricting 

 the rights of private ownership in forests as distinct from 

 all other forms of property. That broad fact is food for 

 American reflection. 



Lack of cheap lumber is an economic handicap in 

 France. It is apparent particularly in her rural dis- 

 tricts, where a new structure of any kind is a rare sight 

 and the ancient, moss-covered farm buildings give an 

 impression of decadence which is only partly real, but 

 nevertheless, portrays forcibly the low standards of rural 

 improvements which not only reduce the comfort and 

 wholesomeness of country life, but inevitably lower the 

 efficiency of agricultural industries. The per capita con- 

 sumption of lumber in France is not more than ioo 



board feet per annum, less than one-third that of the 

 United States. In other words, France illustrates the 

 evils of a condition where lumber is a luxury, in part an 

 imported luxury. Her eighteen per cent of forested 

 land is not enough. Her intensive forestry can but par- 

 tially offset the effects of a shortage of timber-producing _ 

 land. Hence the necessity of a national policy of for- 

 est preservation even at the cost of a reduction in 

 farm crops. 



It is not yet our problem in the United States to strike 

 a close balance between the forest and the farm. That 

 can be left to the economic adjustments of the future. It 

 is rather our problem to put idle land to use. Produc- 

 tion from land is just as important in the long run as pro- 

 duction by labor or industrial organizations, about which 

 so much is being said these days. The situation of 

 France today is a striking warning that the United States 

 can ill-afford the national loss of idle land. Public 

 agencies doubtless must assume the greater part of the 

 immediate task of growing timber on our idle cut-over 

 land. But publicly owned forests cannot do all of it in 

 the United States any more than in France. Our national 

 policy should aim definitely and unequivocally at the prac- 

 tice of forestry by private owners as rapidly as that can 

 be brought about by better methods of taxing timber- 

 land, by the co-operation and educational help of state and 

 federal agencies, and by the recognition, on an equitable 

 basis, of the obligations carried by forest ownership. 



SIGNIFICANT TRENDS IN LUMBER PRODUCTION 

 IN THE UNITED STATES 



BY FRANKLIN H. SMITH, STATISTICIAN IN FOREST 'PRODUCTS 



THE demands for wood made upon our forests are 

 of greater importance each succeeding year, be- 

 cause of the annual growth in population and the 

 gradual utilization of the surplus timber of the country. 

 In the absence of any but rough approximations of the 

 quantity of timber standing in the forests, the inroads 

 being made upon the supply can be no more than assumed. 

 The assertion, however, that the annual harvest is much 

 greater than the annual growth is unquestionably well 

 founded. As a basis for the contention that the vast 

 supply has been and is being seriously impaired, one has 

 but to point to the shifting centers of production as the 

 available timber of a region is well harvested and the 

 needs of the country are necessarily drawn in greater 

 volume from some other region. Going back to the 

 middle of the last century, we can distinctly trace the 

 history of the lumber industry of the country at ten 

 year intervals by showing the relative importance of the 

 several producing regions. This has been done in 

 Table i . 



A glance at the tabulation shows that in 1850 almost 

 three-fourths of all the lumber was produced in two 

 general regions the northeastern group and the central 

 group of States. The first named region embraces 



Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode 

 Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New 

 Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. The second, or central 

 group of States, includes West Virginia, Kentucky, 

 Tennessee, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. In 

 1918, or nearly seventy years later, the combined pro- 

 duction for these two regions formed but 15 per cent 

 of the total for all States. As the forests of New Eng- 

 land and contiguous territory were depleted, the major 

 activities of the lumber industry moved westward into 

 the Lake States. Here the production rose from 6 per 

 cent of the country's output in 1850 to a maximum of 

 35 per cent in 1880-1889, dropped off to 25 per cent in 

 1899 an d t0 IO P er cent in 1918. For the southern group 

 of States the per cent of total cut rose from 8 per cent 

 in 1850 to 35 per cent in 1918. A later generation tapped 

 the forests of the Pacific Coast group of States; the 

 group contributed 8 per cent of the nation's lumber 

 product in 1899, 15 per cent in 1909, and 27 per cent in 

 1918. The last figure rather startlingly directs attention 

 to the decadence of the industry in other regions. 



Some of the older men in the lumber industry today 

 and there are several patriarchs who have enriched our 

 history of the lumber industry have witnessed these 



