16 IMPRESSIONS OF FRENCH FORESTRY 



agricultural land to timber production. Intensive methods of growing 

 successive crops of timber form a necessary part of her national economy. 

 The shortage and high cost of wood have given an impetus to the practice 

 of forestry as a business which is scarcely approached in any part of the 

 United States. 



The Handicap of Lumber Shortage. — Lack of cheap lumber is an 

 economic handicap in France. It is apparent, particularly in her rural 

 districts, 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 wholesome- 

 ness of country life but inevitably lower the efficiency of agricultural in- 

 dustries. The manufacturing industries of France suffer from the 

 scarcity and high cost of timber. The per-capita consumption of lumber 

 is not more than 100 board feet per annum, less than one-third that of the 

 United States. In other words, France illustrates the evils of a situation 

 where lumber is a luxury, in part — an imported luxury. Her 18 per 

 cent of forested land is not enough. Her intensive forestry can but 

 partially offset the effects of a shortage of timber-producing land. 



America's Problem — Idle Land. — It is not 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. We have an 

 ample area of forest land beyond all requirements for agriculture. It is 

 rather our problem to put idle land to use. The United States contains 

 probably 500,000,000 acres of forest land. Our uncut virgin timber has 

 been reduced to not more than 150,000,000 acres. Of the 350,000,000 

 acres of cutover land at least a third has been reduced by heavy cutting 

 and forest fires to unproductive wastes. An area of forest land at least 

 five times that of all the forests of France combined is producing nothing. 



Timber has been cheap and plentiful in the United States as compared 

 with other nations. Our per-capita consumption of lumber is two or 

 three times that of any of our principal competitors. It is our problem 

 to keep timber cheap and plentiful, to make it unnecessary to restrict the 

 use of wood in domestic industries or export trade, to avoid reductions in 

 the per-capita consumption of lumber toward the lowest limits of civilized 

 existence which it has reached in France. This does not require as yet 

 the practice of intensive European forestry. It can be accomplished by 

 the simplest measures of protection and regeneration which will keep 

 timberland productive. The starting point must be to stop the devasta- 

 tion of the forest lands now being cut and to put our millions of idle acres 

 at work growing trees. This will require not only a large share of public 

 cooperation but also, as in France, a recognition of the obligations carried 

 by forest ownership. 



