Even though Federal and State Governments and other 
agencies maintain nurseries capable of producing hundreds 
of millions of trees each year, the combined planting by all 
agencies, public and private, 1s covering only a small fraction 
of the area needing reforestation. 
When an area is planted it usually means setting out about 
800 to 1,000 trees to the acre. A million trees will thus cover 
only 1,000 to 1,250 acres. 
From 1926 to 1946, the United States Forest Service 
planted 1,592,007 acres in the national forests. Other Fed- 
eral agencies planted 201,286 acres. State agencies planted 
949,798 acres; counties, towns, and cities 253,085 acres; 
farmers and other small owners 1,691,931 acres; railroads, 
pulp and paper, lumber, water and other companies 397,150 
acres; and schools and colleges 23,935 acres. Planting by 
all agencies in the 20-year period totaled 6,483,632 acres, 
and on 4,243,788 of these acres the planting is classed as 
successful. 
This is a laudable and encouraging beginning. But at this 
rate reforestation of all the millions of acres of denuded and 
poorly stocked forest land in need of planting would require 
generations. 
Much of our artificial reforestation is a rehabilitation 
measure to correct past mistakes. Some 75 million acres of 
forest lands in the United States are now poorly stocked or 
AE 
