CIRCULAR No. 21 JANUARY, 1928 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

 WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AMERICA AND THE WORLD'S WOODPILE J 



By Raphael Zon; Directory Lake States Forest Experiment Station, and 

 William N. SparhawkK Forest Economist, Branch of Research, Forest 

 Service. 



A proposal that the United States abandon one-sixth of her terri- 

 tory to foreign powers would be met with instant and general dis- 

 approval. The American people would not hesitate to sacrifice 

 millions of lives and countless treasure, if necessary, to prevent such 

 a surrender. Yet practically as great a loss in national wealth and 

 income would be suffered if all the privately owned forest land of 

 the country were allowed gradually to lapse into an idle, unpro- 

 ductive condition — the actual condition on many thousand square 

 miles to-day — and if the forests of other countries were called upon 

 to furnish the wood that American forests have hitherto produced. 



The forest land of the United States amounts altogether to about 

 730,000 square miles. About 150,000 square miles is managed for 

 permanent timber production under public ownership, Federal, State, 

 and local. The other 580,000 square miles, an area larger than 

 France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, and the 

 British Isles, is privately owned. This privately owned forest land 

 supports industries giving employment to more than a million people 

 and turning out each year primary products valued at $2,000,000,000. 

 Besides supplying domestic needs it annually furnishes foreign coun- 

 tries with lumber and other wood products valued at close to 

 $200,000,000. 



These figures indicate great productive values, but they do not 

 tell the whole story. Should present conditions persist, the great 

 contribution to our national wealth and welfare made by privately 

 owned forest land would be largely temporary, soon to be drained 

 away. The reason is that only a small part of this land is now being 

 handled so as to produce timber continuously. The greater part is 

 gradually drifting into idleness, producing so little that it is a burden 

 to its owners and to the communities within whose territory it lies. 

 Some 125,000 square miles has already ceased to be productive, and a 

 much larger area is only partially productive. 



The unproductive land is being abandoned not because of any 

 serious difficulty in keeping it productive, nor because the way to 

 keep it productive is not known, but primarily because its owners 

 doubt whether timber growing will pay. Hitherto, as the virgin tim- 

 ber in one reg ion was cut, there was always another virgin supply 



2 vo&%7V™lw YVT^Si^ W ° rW ' * RaphaGl Z ° U and William N. Sparbawk, 



69772°— 28 



