A NATIONAL FOREST POLICY 



1341 



the continent, should develop a plan which would protect 

 the future supply of our lumber. It is apparent that very 

 little will be done in conserving a product that has no 

 ultimate value, and the tendency in the past has been to 

 criticise lumbermen and operators for organized efforts 

 to control the product or secure a price for a commodity 

 which is so essential. 



Forestry is practiced in foreign countries, where the 

 value of stumpage has reached a point that reproduction 

 can be carried out. Where stumpage is so cheap that 

 the private operator cannot see any investment value, 

 and where the cupidity of the tax gatherer forces sacri- 

 ficing the timber in order to meet the needs of the com- 

 munity, timber is going to be looked upon as a detriment 

 to the land rather than a benefit. 



The State of Washington eliminates speculative values 

 in timber, but sells its lands from time to time to oper- 

 ators who must remove the timber within a definite 

 period, say, one or two years. While this eliminates 

 speculative value in purchasing for future rise, yet it 

 forces on the market the entire tract after it is purchased. 



In my judgment, the chief problem confronting the 

 timber owner today is the matter of taxation, and if this 



could be properly solved and a man who could afford to 

 hold timber was enabled to retain it until the demand 

 warrants its cutting, a good many of our problems would 

 be disposed of. As it is now the timber pays a tax every 

 year, and an increasing tax, until it is cut off. No more 

 destructive method of timber holdings could be imagined 

 than this system. 



It would seem, in view of the fact that there is such a 

 wide divergence of opinion as to the actual standing 

 timber of the country, that the Government, through its 

 Forestry Department, might employ the Aeroplane Serv- 

 ice to take views from above of every representative 

 stand of timber in the country, and in this way formulate 

 a policy and an actual determination as to the value of 

 the timber stands throughout the country. There are a 

 good many things that require the backing of Uncle 

 Sam to finance, and I believe the lumbermen generally, 

 at least the progressive ones, will co-operate in every 

 way with the agencies of the Government if the problems 

 that confront them are approached from a practical 

 viewpoint, and not altogether from theoretical or aca- 

 demic stands. 



LEASE HOLDS INTERFERE 



BY G. L. HUME 



VICE-PRESIDENT MONTGOMERY LUMBER COMPANY, SUFFOLK, VIRGINIA 



T DO not believe that under the present existing laws 

 ■*■ and conditions in this section that the proposition for 

 such a National Forest Policy as outlined by U. S. 

 Forester Graves would be practical, especially in the 

 North Carolina pine belt. This is principally due to the 



fact that the majority of the timber is held on lease holds, 

 that is, the lumbermen own the timber but not the 

 land. In fact, in only a very small per cent of the 

 cases do the same parties own both the timber and 

 the land in fee. 



NO HALF-WAY POLICIES 

 BY J. E. BARTON, COMMISSIONER OF FORESTRY FOR KENTUCKY 



T HAVE read with the keenest interest the address by 

 -*- Colonel H. S. Graves on "The National Lumber and 

 Forest Policy," delivered before the American Lumber 

 Congress at Chicago in April, 1919, and am heartily in 

 support of the remedial measures advocated there. No 

 half-way policies in connection with the establishment of 

 a broad and adequate national and state forest policy 

 will meet the situation. It is necessary to formulate a 

 stiff program and adhere rigidly to it before any progress 

 can be made in legislation which will adequately 'provide 

 for the perpetuation of our forest resources as a part of 

 the national life of the nation. As has been repeatedly 

 stated, the recent war has certainly demonstrated the 

 weakness and the incompleteness of the policies and pro- 

 grams already in operation. These merely scratch the 

 surface and the broad problem of privately owned timber 

 lands is not touched. There is no reason, with the amount 

 of waste lands at the present time in the individual states 

 and in the United States, that sufficient forest reserves 

 cannot be provided adequately to assure a sufficient sup- 

 ply of timber for the country for an indefinite period, 

 but this is going to be possible only through clear-cut, well 



\ 



defined and vigorous legislation on the part of the states 

 and the Federal Government, and adequate co-operation 

 among all agencies concerned, in seeing that the details 

 of such legislation are conscientiously carried out. So 

 far as Kentucky itself is concerned, there is already 

 plainly evident that the definite change from large perma- 

 nently located saw mills, backed by large bodies of timber 

 of sufficient size to warrant the expenditure for large 

 plants to small minor operations, cutting isolated bodies 

 of timber or returning to cut inferior varieties left during 

 the initial operations. The interpretation of this situation 

 means that the virgin stands of timber have disappeared 

 or will be gone in the immediate future. Any program 

 looking to the establishment of a policy which will 

 assure the timber resources of the country indefinitely 

 would involve these features : 



(1) A complete and accurate inventory of the re- 

 maining timber resources of the individual states and of 

 the nation. 



(2) Extensive investigations in the matters of yield 

 and growth, upon which, at the present time, there is, 

 over large regions, little or not satisfactory data. 



