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MISCELLANEOUS CIRCULAR 15 
f Issued March, 1924 
Washington, D. C. Revised May, 1925 
IMPORTANCE OF FORESTRY AND THE NATIONAL 
| FORESTS 
Information for Social and Civic Organizations in the Southwest 
United States Forest Service, District 3, Albuquerque, N. Mex. 
FOREWORD 
ROMINENT among the problems that are engaging the Nation 
is that of an impending timber shortage. America was origi- 
nally endowed with natural resources that seemed inexhaustible. In 
that belief the United States became a nation of thoughtless users 
and even wasters of the things that are necessary to the development 
and carrying on of present-day civilization. 
This has been especially true in the matter of timber. The de- 
pletion of timber has gone so far that what in many localities was 
once an incumbrance to the land is now a valued commodity that 
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must be brought from afar. Enormous freight bills and ever- | 
mounting selling prices testify that lumber is no longer plentiful 
in America. Constantly shrinking forest areas proclaim that the 
time is near when regions capable of producing timber must grow 
their own or do without. Europe can hardly sustain itself and 
certain Provinces in Canada are already prohibiting exportations of 
pulp wood from Crown lands. Aroused to this condition economists 
are urging a national policy of forestry practice. 
Some progress in constructive timber production has already 
been made, and though not soon enough to prevent timber scarcity 
will help to render it less hurtful. Several of the States, a few 
counties, and a number of cities have acquired timberlands and are 
administering them under approved timber growing practices. Un- 
der provision of the enabling act in Arizona and special cooperative 
agreements in both States, the State-owned forest areas in Arizona 
and New Mexico are handled in the same manner as the national 
forests. Sales of timber are in fact administered by Forest Service 
men loaned to the State for such lengths of time as they are needed. 
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