2 BULLETIN 638, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 



output of lumber and remanufactured products amounts to $1,582,- 

 000,000. From the crude mills and moderate cuts of early days has 

 come the modern mill of enormous capacity and elaborate equipment. 

 To-day the lumber industry produces an annual cut of some hundred 

 billion board feet of wood, furnishes a means of support for several 

 millions of people, and in hundreds of ways is closely interwoven 

 in the fabric of our economic life. 



But there is another side to the picture. Too often has forest utili- 

 zation been synonymous with forest destruction. Our forests, for the 

 most part, have been used not as a crop, a renewable resource, but as 

 a mine, which could yield its wealth but once and then must be aban- 

 doned. In many places when the forest " mine 55 became exhausted, 

 the civilization and prosperity that forest exploitation brought 

 about declined and disappeared. Other evils, inseparable from the 

 system, also have followed in the wake of destructive lumbering. 

 To point out some of the harmful economic and social effects and to 

 suggest a remedy is the object of this bulletin. Before doing so, 

 however, the reason for the destructiveness of ordinary lumbering 

 operations in the United States will be touched upon briefly, since 

 this offers a clue to the solution of the problem. 



WHY OUR FORESTS HAVE BEEN DEVASTATED. 



The chief reason why forest destruction rather than forest conser- 

 vation has held sway in the United States is clearly the individu- 

 alistic economic system under which the natural resources of the 

 country have been utilized. The theory has been that individual ini- 

 tiative and self-interest, stimulated by the desire for pecuniary gain, 

 could be trusted to secure the quickest and most nearly complete 

 utilization of these resources, and that in the long run private owner- 

 ship and development would result in the greatest good to the entire 

 community. In line with this idea both the Federal and State 

 Governments, until a comparatively few years ago 5 almost uniformly 

 followed the policy of disposing of their forest lands as rapidly as 

 possible. Enormous areas were sold, generally for a fraction of their 

 real value, given away as railroad, highway, or other grants, and 

 acquired — often for " homestead " purposes — under the various pub- 

 lic-land laws. Within the last century several hundred million acres 

 of forest lands in the United States have passed from public to 

 private ownership. 



Complete control over the bulk of the forests in the country has 

 been turned over to thousands of private owners, each of whom has 

 followed his own individual interest in handling his property. 

 There has been no uniformity either in point of view or in practice. 

 Some owners have cut conservatively, others recklessly, and still 



