MANAGEMENT PLANS THE NATIONAL FOEESTS 13 



sizes and qualities find a user. Even greater progress in this direc- 

 tion in the future is to be anticipated with confidence and the for- 

 ester should be constantly on the alert to take advantage of every 

 opening to bring about better silvicultural practice through higher 

 standards of utilization. 



REGULATION 



In making a management plan it is in the section on regulation 

 that the forester decides when and where and how much he is going 

 to cut during the budget period ahead of him. It is obviously a 

 very important part of the plan. 



Nearly everywhere, both in virgin stands and in stands that have 

 followed the unregulated cutting of pioneer days or are the result 

 of old burns, the forest manager is faced with the necessity of con- 

 verting as rapidly as may be through the use of the lumberman's 

 ax, his very abnormal, often silviculturally stagnant, forest into an 

 organized forest property that produces in accordance with the 

 capacity of the site and has a more or less balanced representation 

 of age classes. At the same time, he is seeking, in the national 

 forests at least, to feed out the cut of his forest at a rate and in a 

 manner that will approach as nearly as possible sustained yield, or 

 at the least sustained operation. 



Maximum production per acre and sustained yield are the for- 

 ester's ideals, seldom reached in one man's lifetime, and never attained 

 unless each man in the chain strives and plans to that end and 

 hands the forest property over to his successor farther advanced 

 than when he took it. To the extent that he can cut over each year 

 a parcel of his working circle that represents the timbered area 

 divided by the cutting cycle, just to that extent will he have an 

 opportunity to put his forest into order and condition for maximum 

 production and sustained yield. 



Nevertheless, it is not always possible to figure out a sustained 

 yield in the narrow sense of the term. The condition of the stand, 

 as, for instance, in the case of a working circle where the growing 

 stock is overwhelmingly overmature and decadent, may clearly indi- 

 cate the necessity of cutting at a faster rate in the first cutting cycle 

 than can be continued. Again, there are working circles where the 

 great size of the necessary initial investment in transportation and 

 utilization facilities demands a larger annual cut of timber over a 

 period of years than can be maintained on a sustained-yield basis. 

 The Forest Service is committed to sustained yield in the national 

 forests as a policy and the principle is the beau ideal of every forester; 

 every plan that is not cast on this basis must show convincingly thai 

 no stone was left unturned in the effort to solve the problem in favor 

 of sustained yield and that the alternative adopted is the nearest 

 approach to sustained yield possible under the circumstances. Aban- 

 donment of sustained yield because of silvicultural conditions is 

 easier of defense than abandonment because of existing economic 

 conditions, particularly in pioneer regions, for the problem may often 

 be solved by the simple expedient of holding the working circle intact 

 until the economic strictures are removed by a change in market 

 requirements or industrial practices. 



