A NATIONAL FOREST POLICY 



AMERICAN FORESTRY MAGAZINE HEREWITH PUBLISHES SOME MORE OPINIONS REGARDING THE NEED OF A NATIONAL 

 FOREST POLICY AND THE KIND OF A FOREST POLICY PROPOSED BY UNITED STATES FORESTER, HENRY S. GRAVES. COL. 

 GRAVES' OUTLINE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF SUCH A POLICY WAS PRINTED IN THE AUGUST ISSUE OF THE MAGAZINE. 

 FORESTERS, LUMBERMEN AND TIMBERLAND OWNERS THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY HAVE BEEN INVITED BY THE AMERICAN 

 FORESTRY ASSOCIATION TO EXPRESS THEIR VIEWS ON THIS VITALLY IMPORTANT SUBJECT.— Editor. 



FOREST ECONOMICS : SOME THOUGHTS ON AN OLD SUBJECT 



BY WILSON COMPTON 

 SECRETARY-MANAGER, NATIONAL LUMBER MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION 



NO well-informed American denies the need for a 

 national plan for efficient forest utilization and 

 adequate replacement of timber. But this is only 

 the statement of a problem, not of its solution. Although 

 there may be general agreement as to the nature of the 

 problem, a veritable encyclopedia of argument and dis- 

 cussion might not suffice to secure agreement as to the 

 answer. 



Most of the public discussion of Forest Policy has 

 heretofore originated among the foresters. Some of the 

 policies publicly advocated may represent the general 

 opinion of the profession. "Public opinion," however, we 

 have learned, is not the opinion of the most people but the 

 opinion of those who talk the most, or the loudest. It is 

 therefore of doubtful propriety to attribute to the pro- 

 fession as a whole the sensationalism and faddism of a 

 few men having apparently no permanent attachment to 

 a substantial forestry enterprise, whose concepts of forest 

 economics are apparently quite unsoiled by contact with 

 the facts of industry, and whose self-constituted inter- 

 pretation of the public interest is vague and mocking. 



As a plain citizen, interested in whatever will promote 

 national welfare, I am glad to contribute what I can to 

 clearing away the haze which, it seems to me, has for 

 years enveloped the discussion of future forests and 

 timber supplies, in relation to the industrial life of 

 America. In the discussions of this in recent years, it 

 seems to me, a number of points have frequently been 

 overlooked and other points of doubtful validity have 

 been sometimes taken for granted. 



A mere enumeration of these with a brief and rather 

 abrupt explanation is all that a short space will permit. 

 The future permanent supply of standing timber as a 

 raw material for industry is a problem of economics. 

 How much timber, what kinds of timber, where it should 

 be located, what lands should be timbered, and how the 

 timber should be used, cannot be determined by applying 

 principles of forestry. These questions will be cor- 

 rectly answered only by appeal to the experience of 

 business and industry, in the light of all the complex 

 economic needs of the nation and in consideration of the 

 experiences of other countries under similar circum- 

 stances. When the nation's timber needs have been 

 determined — then the principles of forestry correctly 

 applied may show how these needs can best be met. 



Whether or not it is good forestry to have forests for 

 the sake of having trees, it is not good economics. 

 Forestry cannot safely construct its own kind of eco- 

 nomics without considering the nation's needs for the 

 products of all other industries, which are taken from 

 the same land which might otherwise grow trees, and 

 which are made by the same labor which might other- 

 wise make wood products — and then assert that a pro- 

 gram of forest renewal based thereon is a correct inter- 

 pretation of the public interest. 



Fourteen Points to Consider. 



To anticipate the probable denial by some reader that 

 the points here commented upon have ever been advocated 

 by any conservationist or by any forester, I wish to say 

 that each one has been advocated to me either in personal 

 conversation or in correspondence. I have never had, 

 however, the impression that the views held by some 

 "conservationists" and some foresters actually represent- 

 ed the views of their respective professions as a body. 



1. Possession of cheap and plentiful timber is not 

 necessarily a symptom of national wealth. 



The great forests of original timber did and do add greatly to 

 national wealth. But a permanent policy that would perpetuate 

 the original quality of merchantable timber or any large propor- 

 tion of it might, and probably would, involve a national waste 

 through employing soil, capital and labor for a less profitable 

 use when a more profitable use was available. Low prices for 

 forest products at the expense of relative scarcity and high 

 prices for other commodities is not safe public economy. 



2. Removal of original forests from the soil of the 

 United States without provision for forest renewal on 

 most of the land thus cleared is not necessarily a national 

 misfortune. 



Classification of land in the light of all the complex agri- 

 cultural and industrial needs of the nation is basic in any ra- 

 tional plan. The scarcity that is most impressive nowadays is 

 not the scarcity of trees, but the scarcity of trees near to the 

 centers of lumber consumption. But although impressive it is 

 not conclusive. It is by no means improbable that a compre- 

 hensive survey of the needs of forest industries in the light of 

 all other industrial needs would show that the public interest 

 will best be served if the permanent commercial stands of timber 

 are confined to the mountainous country of the Far West, the 

 Appalachian and White Mountain region, and rough country 

 elsewhere. It might be exceedingly wasteful, for example, to 

 maintain under forest more than a small proportion of the cut- 

 over Southern pine lands. Certainly the ambitious South would 

 resent an effort to maintain the South permanently as an in- 



