OUR FORESTS 33 



reach maturity than other plant crops, and under ordinary systems 

 of taxation private forest lands may therefore prove a liability to 

 their owner rather than an asset. Such lands require a system of 

 taxation whereby the private owner may carry a fair share of the 

 tax burden and at the same time realize an adequate profit on his 

 long-term investment. Some States, realizing this, have revised 

 their forest tax laws in recent years. 



Fire probably forms the greatest risk the private timber grower 

 has to take, for within a short space of time it can eat up the profits 

 derived from years of growth. Some private owners have estab- 

 lished systems of fire suppression on their timber holdings which 

 work more or less satisfactorily. Adequate forest-fire control, how- 

 ever, is possible only through the cooperation of all agencies inter- 

 ested in forest protection, namely, the Federal Government, the 

 States, and the private owner. To make possible cooperation be- 

 tween all of these agencies was one of the reasons for the enactment 

 of the Clarke-McNary Act. 



The practice of commercial forestry will no doubt increase as 

 the natural-growth forests become scarcer. Research carried on 

 by the Forest Service and other forest agencies is constantly adding 

 to the knowledge required to apply sound principles of forestry 

 profitable to privately owned timberlands. 



TIMBER— A VITAL NATIONAL RESOURCE 



The forest, unlike many other natural resources, can be renewed 

 after the original supply has been consumed. When given a chance, 

 nature herself can take care of the renewal. Seed trees judiciously 

 left after cutting will provide for the reseeding of a lumbered area, 

 and if fire is kept out the forest will come back. But when the forest 

 is totally destroyed, the land, which in many cases is not suited to 

 agricultural crops, lies idle. There are millions of acres of such 

 lands in the United States, largely the result of destructive lumber- 

 ing, fire, or both. 



The amount of deforested land in the United States has been in- 

 creasing every year. The people have been taking an enormous toll 

 of their forests, cutting over about 10,000,000 acres annually to meet 

 their timber requirements. Since natural growth does not replace all 

 of this acreage, more land is added annually to the total area of de- 

 forested lands. 



While it is hoped the day of wasteful forest exploitation is nearing 

 an end, forest fires are still with us, and they form one of the greatest 

 problems of present-day forestry. For the past 25 years the United 

 States Forest Service and some of the States have been wrestling 

 with fire on the public forests and have developed extensive systems 

 of fire suppression and control. The Forest Service is also cooper- 

 ating with State officials and through them with private agencies in 

 the protection of timbered and forest-producing lands from fire. 



Nevertheless, each year sees fire increase our acreage of devastated 

 land, causing losses amounting to millions of dollars. More than 

 61,000 fires occurred in 1931 on the forest land protected by Federal, 

 State, and other agencies, and it is estimated that in the same year 

 over 125,000 fires occurred on unprotected lands. Of the total num- 

 ber of fires on protected lands 23.4 percent were caused by smokers; 

 24.9 percent by incendiaries; 12 percent by debris burning; 6 per- 



