Our Use of the Timber Resource 
Shrinking Supply Limits Timber Use 
The continued shrinkage and deterioration of 
forest growing stock is the heart of the Nation’s 
forest problem. It means that we cannot use timber 
as generously as in the past. For example, the 
difficulty of getting lumber has driven lumber 
prices up more than those of other construction 
materials. Relief that may come from more rapid 
cutting of the present timber stand will at best 
be temporary or partial. The tide of depletion 
must be turned if the forests are to make their 
full contribution to the economic and social life 
of the Nation. 
To help turn the tide every effort should, of 
course, be made to reduce waste in logging, manu- 
facture, and use. Losses from fire, insects, disease, 
and other destructive agents should also be re- 
duced. But above all, more timber should be 
grown—the extent of denuded land and the wide- 
spread occurrence of poor stocking and inferior 
_ quality indicate that much of the productive ca- 
pacity of the land is going to waste. Good cutting 
practices in the virgin timber also offer opportunity 
for increasing timber growth. But saw timber can- 
not be grown overnight—and timber shortage is 
pressing us now. To bring the problem of timber 
use and depletion into focus, it is necessary to 
examine current growth and drain.1% 
Timber Growth | 
The forests of the United States are now grow- 
ing at a yearly rate of 13.4 billion cubic feet of 
all timber including 35.3 billion board feet of saw 
timber 14 (table 9). Over half of the saw-timber 
growth (56 percent) is in the South. Only one- 
fourth is in the North, although the North has 
_ almost as much commercial forest land as the 
_ South. The remaining one-fifth is in the West. 
48 Timber drain measures the total volume removed from 
the forest by cutting (including waste and breakage in log- 
ging) and by losses from fire, wind, ice, epidemics of insects 
or disease, and other destructive agents. Endemic losses from 
insects and disease are accounted for in growth computations. 
“See footnote 7, p. 17, for definition. 
Forests and National Prosperity 
Ke 
In the eastern half of the country, where prac- 
tically all the forest land has been cut over one or 
more times, current growth really measures the 
extent to which present practices utilize the pro- 
ductive capacity of the land. In the West, on the 
other hand, timber growth may be expected to 
increase as cutting progresses, because two-fifths 
of the commercial forest land is still in virgin 
timber, making little or no net growth. Effective 
saw-timber growth can be obtained promptly in 
some virgin forest types by selective cutting, which 
would take the overmature and decadent trees and 
leave a vigorous growing stock. Clear-cutting of 
a whole area, however, usually postpones effective 
saw-timber growth 50 years or more. 
The current estimate of saw-timber growth is 
3.3 billion board feet greater than the 1938 esti- 
mate. Most of the difference may be due to the 
nature of the estimates rather than to changes 
actually taking place. For example, earlier esti- 
mates were weaker and generally lower than cur- 
rent estimates in regions not reached by the Forest 
Survey, notably the New England, Middle At- 
lantic, Central, and California regions.1> Such 
increases were partly offset by a reduction in the 
area of commercial forest land in the Rocky Moun- 
tain regions. An improved method of calculating 
growth led to an increase over the earlier estimate 
for the Douglas-fir subregion. Only for the Lake 
region and the South are the estimates comparable. 
In the Lake region saw-timber growth dropped 
24 percent in 10 years, with the decline more acute 
for softwoods than hardwoods. Total cubic-foot 
growth declined 17 percent. 
In the South!® saw-timber growth is 3 percent 
greater than it was 10 years ago. However, the net 
increase of 622 million board feet is the result of 
% See footnote 10, p. 19. 
1° These figures are based on the South as defined in the 
1938 appraisal. Kentucky and West Virginia are included 
in addition to the three regions comprising the South in this 
report. Even here estimates are not fully comparable. Four 
States (Va., W. Va., Tenn., and Ky.) were not covered by the 
Forest Survey in 1938, and in 1945. Survey data were avail- 
able for only one of these (Va.). 
Al. 
