it is impossible to restore such a balance in forest properties. Practical 

 considerations now and in the future will prevent the reinstallation of the 

 balance of nature except perhaps on very limited areas. 



Our civilization being what it is, it becomes necessary for man to create 

 another type of balance through the manipulation of wildlife habitats and 

 of wildlife itself. In this substitute balance wildlife management must be 

 a very important part of forest management. The forests must be better 

 protected and managed in the interests of fish and game by the control of 

 forest fires, the encouragement of conditions that will contribute to wild- 

 life food, shelter, and sanctuary, the production of shrubs and other species 

 suitable for wildlife food, the management of timber stands with wildlife 

 considerations in mind. In timber areas, for example, it may be desirable 

 to leave sufficient cover for the wildlife, to leave a certain percentage of 

 such so-called weed trees as persimmon, crab apple, mountain ash, and 

 berry-producing bushes, for their value as a food source to the wildlife, or 

 to overlook an occasional snag that may provide a home for a raccoon or 

 a woodpecker. If a certain species of animal is scarce, it is necessary to 

 protect it from trapping and hunting. If there are too many of any par- 

 ticular species for the amount of food that is available, it becomes ad- 

 visable to reduce the number by increased hunting. It is considered wiser 

 to take the lives of the surplus animals for human use than to leave them 

 in the forest to die of starvation and disease. 



Through careful management and restoration of forest cover a new set of 

 conditions suitable to wildlife may thus be achieved. In this scheme of 

 balance through management everyone, more or less, has a personal responsi- 

 bility. 



Who Own and Manage the Forests? 



Forest ownership in the United States. — Communities, counties, cities, States, 

 the Federal Government, individuals, and industrial corporations own forest 

 lands. Some schools own forests as investments and as outdoor labora- 

 tories. Such forests may be classed either under public or private owner- 

 ship. Forest ownership is the key to conservation because the owner 

 determines how the forest is managed. 



Private ownership. — There are approximately 630 million acres of forest 

 land in the United States. About 462 million acres of this forest land is 

 capable of producing valuable timber and other forest products. About 

 three-fourths of this commercial forest land, including the best, is in private 

 ownership. 



Industrial ownership is the most important type of private ownership, 

 because in these forests opportunities for supplies of raw materials and for 

 employment are most abundant. In many cases, these forests have been 

 logged with no thought of the future and the land has been entirely depleted 

 of forest growth. The best forest land is owned by lumber, pulp and paper, 

 land, and mining companies, by naval stores operators, railroads, and 

 others. Industrial ownership is common in the East and public ownership 

 in the West. 



Farmer ownership of forest land is next in importance to industrial 

 ownership. There are 185 million acres of forest land so owned. This 

 means that about 30 percent of the total forest acreage is on farms. About 

 95 percent of this farm forest land is east of the Mississippi River. More 

 than half of that is in the South. In the South, privately owned forests are 

 about half in industrial and half in farm ownership. 



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