Three-fourths of the private land is in small 
holdings of less than 5,000 acres, averaging 62 
acres. On these but 4 percent of the cutting is 
good or high-order. ‘Twenty-five percent rates fair 
and the remaining 71 percent is poor or destruc- 
tive. ‘This ownership class represents the more for- 
midable of private forest-management problems. 
Cutting practices also vary by type of owner. 
They are better on pulp- and lumber-company 
holdings than on farm and other private prop- 
erties (fig. 15). 
About 40 percent of the privately owned forest 
is on some 314 million farms. Here only 27 per- 
cent of the cutting rates fair and better, and of 
this only 4 is good; none is high-order. The re- 
maining 73 percent is poor or destructive. 
On the lands of lumber and pulp companies— 
in the aggregate about 15 percent of those in pri- 
vate ownership—27 percent of the cutting is good 
or better. About 40 percent rates poor or destruc- 
tive; the remaining one-third is fair. By and 
large, pulp-company lands get distinctly better 
treatment than those of lumber companies. 
The other nonfarm lands, 45 percent of the 
total in private ownership, get little better treat- 
ment than the farm woodlands. Most of these 
holdings are small. They are in about | million 
properties held by a variety of individuals and 
companies, the majority being absentee owners. 
The practices on farm woodlands and other 
small holdings differ little regionally. But for 
medium and large holdings the South leads the 
North and West in cutting practices by a wide 
margin. For example, about 52 percent of the 
cutting on large holdings in the South is good 
or better as compared with only 9 percent in the 
other two sections. 
How Much Sustained-Yield Forestry? 
Sustained-yield management—operating a forest 
property for continuous production—is an impor- 
tant criterion of good forestry. ‘Timber supplies 
can run low, even with good cutting practices, if 
the rate of cutting is too fast. Under sustained- 
yield management, the volume of cutting is 
planned so that, barring catastrophe, there will 
be annual harvests commensurate with the pro- 
ductive capacity of the land. If the growing 
stock is deficient for such annual harvests, the 
plan of cutting should provide for building it up 
while maintaining a steady flow of merchantable 
products at substantial though lower rates. For 
Forests and National Prosperity 
properties or working circles that still have a back- 
log of virgin timber, the cutting should be so 
planned that when the virgin timber is gone, an- 
nual harvests commensurate with the inherent 
productivity of the land may be obtained from 
second growth, without drastic readjustment of 
output. 
Sustained-yield ratings were applied only to 
public forest lands and to about 25 percent of the 
private holdings—those of 5,000 acres or more. 
These lands have the greater part of the good 
and high-order cutting. The small holdings were 
not rated because the evidences of sustained- 
yield were not recognizable, in most cases. Some 
doubtless are being managed on a sustained-yield 
basis. Lands were classified in the 
yield category when there was recognizable evi- 
dence of a planned, continuous flow of products in 
substantially regular or increasing quantities— 
provided the cutting practice was at least fair. 
The data show that about two-fifths of the 
operating acreage in public ownership and nearly 
three-fourths of that in the medium and _ large 
private holdings is not on a sustained-yield basis. 
sustained 
Percent of cutting 
on sustained-yield, 
Ownership class: basis, 1945 1 
Publictors yc auth obins nee SOR Aner e ea Wk ee hpae 57 
National\forestyie- oie a eae eu eerie 72 
Others Rederalligye sx csiec an eeeap ete eee meets 44 
Statesand \locala2 aise nal 23 
Private (holdings of 5,000 acres and more) ........ 28 
Meech irri s)5 2 eee NE ales en ethene Dee 9 
Wane ens: 2h rieahih Set Nee Weuetie, cies eee ate a ee 39 
* Weighted in accordance with the number of acres in 
each operating property or working circle. 
National forests make the best showing with 72 
percent. About one-fourth of the cutting on State 
and local government lands is rated on a sus- 
tained-yield basis. 
Most national-forest land not on sustained yield 
is in remote localities in the West. Actually, these 
lands are under management which assures future 
output of forest products and services. ‘They are 
well protected. Cutting policies are well estab- 
lished. But the lack of access roads and other 
economic factors have held cutting below sustained- 
yield capacity. These limitations likewise apply 
to some extent on other public and some private 
lands. 
Sustained-yield management has made _ consid- 
erable progress on the large private holdings, with 
39 percent in this category. But the owners of 
medium-sized holdings as a group have hardly 
49 
