{| 
tegrated industries making effective use of all the 
timber. Such an undertaking would entail a 
heavy investment. The pulp plants would have 
to be large and self-contained, and transportation 
costs might present some obstacles in getting the 
output of the supplementary industries to markets 
in the States. Output of the territory may well 
be the equivalent of 1.5 million cords of wood 
annually or about 7 percent of the potential pulp- 
wood requirements. 
Import prospects are limited.—As indicated in 
a previous section, there is less opportunity to 
increase imports than might be supposed. All 
in all, there is a world shortage as well as a do- 
mestic shortage of timber. So it will be wise to 
adopt a program that would eventually enable 
this country to be self-sufficient and also to con- 
tribute to the needs of other nations. 
The Job Is a Big One 
Although the preceding calculations are hypo- 
thetical, they make it clear that if the goals are to be 
achieved, the Nation has a tremendous job to do. 
It will take decades of good forestry, going far 
Forests and National Prosperity 
beyond what has been accomplished in the past, 
to develop a well-balanced growing stock that © 
- will meet future timber needs. 
Adequate protection against fire, insects, and 
disease will reduce the losses of merchantable tim- 
ber and save for future timber production millions 
of seedlings and saplings now destroyed each year. 
Planting a substantial part of the 75 million acres 
now denuded or only poorly stocked with seed- 
lings and saplings would lay the foundation for ad- 
ditional timber growth in the future. But im- 
proved forest practices applied to the timber 
now standing are the surest and quickest means 
of increasing annual growth. To provide the 
security of an adequate timber supply, the Nation 
must have a more dynamic national policy which 
will prevent unsatisfactory forest practices and 
obtain a much wider application of sustained-. 
yield management. Some of the land now in pri- 
vate ownership will need to be shifted to public 
ownership. All of these things take time to get 
under way; and once under way, they require 
more time to achieve their purpose. There is 
no easy way out. 
45 
