18 THE AMES FORESTER 



be stated that a billion feet of lumber would load a freight 

 train 417 miles long, or would build about 65,000 ordinary five 

 or six-room houses. 



Concentration of ownership in terms of board feet is suffi- 

 ciently startling, but perhaps nearly as significant are the 

 figures in terms of acreage. The three largest timber holdings 

 in the United States, those of the Southern Pacific) the Weyer- 

 haeuser Timber Company and the Northern Pacific, aggregate 

 about 9,000,000 acres of timberland, some of it among the finest 

 in the world. The five largest holdings in the country include 

 12,794,0 JO acres, an average of 2,560,000 acres each. Among 

 holdings smaller than these are 9 of from 500,000 to 1,500,000 

 acres, averaging almost 1,000,000 acres each; 27 holdings of 

 from 300,000 to 500,000 acres each; 48 holdings of from 150,- 

 000 to 300,000 acres; 124 of from 75,000 to 150,000 acres; and 

 520 holdings of between 18,000 and 75,000 acres. Thus 733 

 holders own in fee a total of 71,521,000 acres of timberland 

 and land owned in connection with or in the vicinity of this 

 timberland, an average of nearly 100,000 acres each. Nor is 

 this all. There are 961 smaller holders owning a total of 

 6,731,000 acres, an average for each of 7,000 acres, the equiva- 

 lent of 40 homesteads. This makes a total of over 78,000,000 

 acres owned in fee by 1,694 holders, over one-twentieth of the 

 land area of the United States, from the Canadian to the 

 Mexican border. 



Several factors make the power of these large timber hold- 

 ers really much greater than any figures as to acreage or lum- 

 ber feet would indicate. In the first place, large timber hold- 

 ings are proportionately more valuable than small holdings, 

 even when the timber is of only equal quality, because large 

 holdings can be so much more economically managed in every 

 way. In the second place, the large holdings in many places 

 have the smaller holdings " blocked in" in such a way as to 

 practically control them. In the third place, the large timber 

 holdings everywhere include the most valuable timber, the 

 heaviest stands and the most valuable species. In the fourth 

 place, many of the various large holders are bound together 

 by various interrelations of interests in such a way as to make 

 possible common policies. Furthermore many of the large tim- 



