growth might advance to about 64 billion board 
feet in 45 years. This is the level of estimated 
potential requirements plus losses, with no margin 
for security, export, new uses, or ineffective growth. 
If that amount should prove sufficient for all our 
needs, annual drain could then be increased to 
64 billion board feet and annual growth would 
level off, as indicated by the light lines in figure 
12. However, to attain a 72-billion-board-foot goal 
annual drain would have to remain below annual 
growth for 25 to 30 years longer, in order to build 
up more growing stock. 
80 
60 
Y 
40 
AND AAAAN ANAAAARAAARARA 
BILLION BOARD FEET 
20 
_NAAAAARAARRRARRARRRS RARERRAAAAR RRR 
» 
1944 1960 1980 2000 2020 
FicurE 12.—Theoretical course of annual saw-timber growth 
and drain in the United States under a comprehensive 
forestry program designed to achieve 72-billion-board-foot 
growth goal in 75 years with minimum reduction of output 
in the years immediately ahead. 
It is important to emphasize that the course 
of annual growth depicted here assumes wide- 
spread and prompt application of good forest 
practices. It is very improbable that this assump- 
tion will become a reality; hence the indicated 
course of annual growth is above what is likely 
to occur. These calculations, like the growth 
goals themselves, serve to give perspective but 
represent only one possible outcome. They vis- 
ualize achieving the growth goals in 75 years with 
minimum disruption of forest industries and mar- 
kets. Cutting more heavily than indicated, for 
any extended period, might delay or preclude the 
increase in annual growth envisioned for the 
North and South. It might lead to a protracted 
period of greatly reduced cut in the West, should 
the virgin timber be exhausted before new growth 
was ready to support the indicated sustained vol- 
ume of output. On the other hand, several years 
of greatly reduced output in a depression like that 
of the thirties might result in building up growing 
stocks, and hence annual growth, faster than shown 
in figure 12. Protracted reduction of output re- 
sulting from disproportionately high prices for 
timber products would have a similar effect. 
Where Shall We Get Timber Products 
in the Meantime? 
The preceding discussion reveals the dilemma 
that the Nation’s forest situation presents. The 
calculations of what can be safely cut if forest 
productivity is to be built up indicate that an- 
nual drain should be less than 50 billion board 
feet for perhaps 30 years (fig. 12). This is 4 billion 
feet below the 1944 drain. Yet there is an urgent 
need for greater output. To what extent will 
efforts to satisfy present needs further impair 
future productivity? If the Nation exercises suffi- 
cient restraint to avoid continued’ overcutting, 
would that mean permanent loss of markets for 
wood by forcing people to use other materials? 
The possible output of the different sections of 
the country under the comprehensive forestry pro- 
gram visualized in the preceding discussion throws 
some light on these questions (fig. 13). 
Eastern output cannot be maintained.—Sixty- 
three percent of the saw-timber drain, and a still 
larger part of all-timber drain, takes place in the 
North and South. Under the impact of this drain 
the already inadequate growing stock is diminish- 
ing; yet in the allocation of the saw-timber growth 
goal it was suggested that the forests of the North 
should support twice the 1944 drain and those in 
the South 50 percent more. To accomplish this 
will require that growing stock be built up, and 
that in turn can be done only by cutting less than 
is cut now. Indeed, it seems likely, because of 
growing-stock shortages, that output from the 
North and South will be forced down in the 
decade ahead. With good forest practices this 
decline need not go more than 5 billion board 
feet below the 1944 level, but there is little pros- 
pect that output could safely be boosted again 
for 20 or 30 years. Still, with economic activity 
continuing at a high level the depleted growing 
stock is going to be under constant pressure for 
overcutting, and it is very doubtful that as favor- 
able a course as that suggested can be achieved. 
42 Miscellaneous Publication 668, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
