560 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



"THE TIME IS COMING WHEN TIMBER WILL 



COMMENT by editors of the coun- 

 try on the article in American 

 Forestry in regard to the possibilities 

 of cattle raising and reforestation in 

 the South was wide spread. The edi- 

 torial co-operation with the American 

 Forestry Association in its campaign 

 for a national forest policy continues 

 to grow and as a result the nation is 

 being aroused to the great need for 

 action. The report of the Committee 

 on Forest Conservation of the Ameri- 

 can Paper and Pulp Association also 

 called forth much editorial comment 

 calling for action. Some of the ex- 

 pressions of opinion follow : 



Tampa Tribune: In a recent issue of 

 the American Forestry Magazine, Thomas 

 P. Ivy says that "in casting about for a 

 solution to the problem of the future sup- 

 ply of cattle and timber, one naturally 

 visits the South, where our great coastal 

 plains are today being denuded of trees and 

 turned into range lands for cattle." 



He finds that vast areas of these lands 

 are available for both timber and cattle 

 growing, and the question immediately 

 arises whether it will be better husbandry 

 to reforest these cutover places and protect 

 them from the burnings which cattle rang- 

 ing indulges in, or to turn them into ex- 

 clusive cattle countries. 



He says : "That part of the Southern 

 States known as the coastal plain has con- 

 ditions which are most favorable for the 

 development of the cattle industry in con- 

 junction with reforestation, provided there 

 is applied to the problem a well defined 

 national policy that will enable the owners 

 of these lands through governmental finan- 

 cial aid to develop their holdings in accor- 

 dance with their best possibilities." 



Just what are "their best possibilities" is 

 matter for the forestry, agricultural and 

 livestock departments of our various uni- 

 versities and state institutions to decide on 

 and make known to the people. 



The time is coming when timber will be 

 just as much a necessity as beef is today. 

 It is more valuable, in point of dollars, to 

 the grower now than is beef. It would be 

 a shortsighted policy which would pursue 

 the old course of the farmer of a 

 few years ago who grew the thing that 

 came first to hand, whether it paid best 

 or at all, because he had been growing that 

 and his father and grandfather had been 

 growing it. 



The Times-Union observed some time 

 ago, if we mistake not, that "our uncleared 

 lands are not our best grazing lands." It is 

 true. There are areas of timbered range 



in Florida where a cow would starve to 

 death on less than ten acres. And yet 

 there are those among us who persist in 

 burning the grass with its possible young 

 tree trying to fulfill nature's duty in refor- 

 estation, for the sake of getting this grass 

 on ten acres to support a fifteen dollar bull. 

 Scientific and systematic cattle raising 

 and reforestation are both much needed in 

 the South, where we have reveled in the 

 wanton prodigality of nature until her 



ONE WEEK, EVERY WEEK! 



Continuing the hearty co-operation with the 

 American Forestry Association in its cam- 

 paign for a national forest policy, the News- 

 paper Enterprise Association sent this edi- 

 torial to hundreds of newspapers: 



This is forest preservation week. Why? 



Charles Lathrop Pack, president of the 

 American Forestry Association, calls our for- 

 ests the backbone of all industry and cites 

 some figures to prove it. Take a look at these 

 facts and then Indorse the Association's move 

 to have forest preservation week multiplied 

 by 52: 



Ten years ago the United States produced 

 its entire supply of pulpwood, but now two- 

 thirds of it is Imported. This means freight 

 rates to be added to the purchase price. 



Indications are that supplies of pulpwood 

 timber in New England and New York will be 

 exhausted in 10 to 20 years. 



Ten years ago the United States produced 

 its entire newsprint supply now we import 

 two-thirds of it. 



Do you wonder that newspapers are fighting 

 for their lives? Do you wonder what makes 

 the cost of building a home so high? 



Experts predict saw-log lumber will be 

 gone in 50 years. 



The bulk of the original supplies of yellow 

 pine in the south will be gone in 10 years, 

 and, within seven years, 3,000 manufacturing 

 plants there will go out of existence. 



White pine in the Lake States is nearing 

 exhaustion, and these States are paying 

 $6,000,000 a year in freight bills to import 

 timber. 



New England, self-supporting in lumber 20 

 years ago, now has to import one-third of the 

 amount used. 



Fire destroys over $20,000,000 worth of timber 

 every year and kills the reproduction upon 

 thousands of acres of forest lands. 



Within 50 years the present timber shortage 

 will have become a blighting timber famine. 



Forest devastation must be stopped; lands 

 now in forest must be kept continuously pro- 

 ductive; forest lands now devastated and Idle 

 must be put to work. 



strength is nigh spent before we have ob- 

 served that her ration to us is growing 

 short. 



Speaking along this line the other day, 

 the Montgomery Advertiser, which is in 

 a state having great coastal plains being 

 denuded of timber, and burned over for 

 grazing every year, says: "Western farm- 

 ing interests are slowly encroaching on the 

 preserves of the cattle breeders. The great 

 grazing areas are being plowed under and 

 sown to one crop or another. This is re- 

 ducing the available cattle growing area 

 of the country. At the same time we have 

 steadily diminished the remaining supplies 

 of virgin timber in the United States. The 

 timber problem will one day be acute. Re- 

 forestation is essential." 



Common sense, therefore, would indicate 

 that at the earliest possible day this, and 

 other States, should set aside certain areas 



for reforestation and keep from them any 

 possible danger of damage by cattle or fire. 

 Other areas should be set aside for cattle 

 growing and should be protected from every- 

 thing that makes for the injury of that in- 

 dustry. That would include cattle ticks, wild 

 dogs and buzzards, which destroy new drop- 

 ped calves, and scrub bulls. In other words, 

 it points conclusively to the day of the open 

 range and the free tick being at an end. 



Christian Science Monitor: Just as 

 everybody long ago came to understand 

 that the prairies of the western central dis- 

 tricts of the United States were synony- 

 mous with great herds of cattle, so now 

 practically every one has come to realize 

 that the steady encroachments upon these 

 western cattle ranges for farming purposes 

 has decreased the size of the herds. Al- 

 most everybody has apparently accepted it 

 as inevitable that the number of cattle be- 

 ing raised should decline as the western 

 lands were taken up by farmers. But one 

 phase of the matter which apparently very 

 few people in the country have yet ap- 

 preciated is the neglected opportunity for 

 at least partial counterbalancing of the 

 herds displaced in the west by the raising 

 of new herds on lands that are at present 

 neither used nor occupied back east. The 

 most valuable of these neglected lands are 

 in the south. They represent great areas 

 which have been cut over by the lumber 

 interests, and are now lying idle, virtually 

 as waste land. Lumber companies still 

 hold great tracts of this kind, without do- 

 ing anything to make them productive. 

 And it is due largely to Charles Lathrop 

 Pack, president of the American Forestry 

 Association, that general attention is now 

 being directed to the possibility of making 

 these lands in the south contribute in a 

 large way to the raising of cattle. 



These lands are capable of feeding thou- 

 sands of them at the same time that they 

 are made to grow new timber. Use them 

 in this way, he declares, and you can, in 

 addition, provide new forests to supply 

 the wood needed by the country when the 

 forests that are now standing shall have 

 been swept away by the ruthless methods 

 now characteristic of lumber production. 

 All these purposes are desirable in the 

 highest degree. The shortage of wood 

 pulp and the high cost of building mate- 

 rials, now only too obvious as items in 

 the daily news reports, are convincing evi- 

 dence that the nation's forests, as well as 

 its grazing lands, have been reduced below 

 the margin of national safety. And if the 

 southern states can readily be made to sup- 

 ply the lack, there is only one more oppor- 

 tunity for the south to hasten an industrial 

 reclamation which has been going forward 



