UNITED STATES 



DEPARTMENT of AGRICULTURE 



MISCELLANEOUS CIRCULAR 15 



Washington, D. C. March, 1924 



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. 



PROMINENT 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 

 must be brought from afar. Enormous freight bills and ever- 

 mounting selling prices testify that lumber is no longer plentiful 

 in Ajnerica. 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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