UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION No. 247 



Washington, D. C 



November, 1936 



FORESTRY AND PERMANENT PROSPERITY 



By R. F. Hammatt, assistant to the Chief, Forest Service 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Forest-land misuse 1 



Forestry in the United States 2 



Forestry as an aid to economic recovery 2 



Forestry helps to build permanent economic 



prosperity 4 



The forest problem is a social one 4 



The national forests 4 



Farm woodlands 5 



Plains shelterbelt 5 



Integration of agriculture with forest resources.. 8 



Forest-land forage 9 



National-forest ranges 



Page 



Acquisition of forest lands by public agencies .. __ 10 



A new type of forest community 13 



Sustained-yield management and permanent 



communities . 13 



Wildlife -• 14 



Recreation 16 



Multiple-purpose management 16 



Forest research 17 



Universal use ofwood 18 



Forest problem is more than one of growing 



timber. 20 



FOREST-LAND MISUSE 



The American record of land misuse is almost unparalleled. Our 

 forest lands, which constitute almost one-third the area of the con- 

 tinental United States, offer a striking example. Today, three-fourths 

 of them — and four-fifths of the most valuable, or commercial forest 

 lands — are in private ownership. On these lands in recent years 

 fires have burned over more than 41,000,000 acres annually — an 

 area greater than that of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hamp- 

 shire, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia combined. Ax and 

 fire together have devastated or left with crippled, inadequate growing 

 stock an area three-fourths larger, even, than this. 



For more than a century these forest lands were literally forced 

 from public to private ownership. Deliberately undertaken, it may 

 have been assumed that this course would, through individual self- 

 interest, bring about economic prosperity ; would somehow develop a 

 wholesome, stable social and economic structure based upon individual 

 operation of privately owned forest lands. There was precedent for 

 the assumption that this might be a sound economic policy here. For 

 in Old World countries there were privately owned forest lands and 

 forest industries managed on an ever-producing, sustained-yield basis 

 and they had for centuries helped maintain permanent communities. 

 They had always ranked high as a source of stable employment. 

 Integrated with agriculture, they had been the backlog of a sound, 

 enduring rural economy. The attitude of their owners may have 

 been a key to this situation. Certainly it seems so. For in Europe, 

 the private owner of forest lands so managed considers himself a 

 trustee. He harvests forest crops and regularly collects and enjoys 



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