begun sustained-yield cutting; it is practiced on 
only 9 percent of their holdings. 
The proportion of sustained-yield practice varies 
considerably in different parts of the country. 
In the South all the cutting on national-forest 
lands is on a sustained-yield basis; in the North, 
75 percent; and in the West, 65. For the large 
private holdings the corresponding break-down 
is: South 61 percent, North 32, and West 3. 
Although significant progress has been made 
in the Douglas-fir subregion, these figures indicate 
that for the West as a whole private owners have 
attained little sustained-yield management. ‘The 
progress in management made by industry in the 
West as a whole appears to have been largely 
in the field of fire protection and to a lesser extent 
in planning for new crops on cut-over lands rather 
than in adjusting current cutting to sustained- 
yield capacity. 
The Status of Timber Management 
To measure quality of timber management, three 
factors should be taken into consideration: (1) 
Cutting practice, (2) sustained yield, and (3) fire 
protection. Since it is was impracticable to apply 
the sustained-yield test to the 76 percent of private 
land in small holdings, a combination of cutting 
practice and fire protection ratings must suffice 
as the yardstick for this appraisal. In the field 
survey, protection was Classified in four categories 
—good, fair, poor, and none—good protection being 
comparable to that on the better-protected public 
and private lands. 
Combining the protection ratings with character 
of timber cutting, management grades were defined 
as follows: 
1. Intensive management requires high-order 
cutting and good fire protection. 
2. Extensive management requires at least fair 
cutting and fair fire protection. 
a. Good extensive requires good cutting as 
a minimum. 
b. Fair extensive requires fair cutting as a 
minimum. 
3. Without management means that either the 
cutting practices or the fire protection, or both, 
rate poor or worse. 
4. Nonoperating area means that the area is 
not being operated for timber products. 
Only a little over one-third of the land is under 
timber management as thus defined (fig. 16). This 
includes only 2 percent intensively managed, 16 
’ 
percent under good extensive management, and 17 
percent under fair extensive management. More 
than half is without management; 13 percent is 
non-operating. 
Only 14 percent of the publicly owned com- 
mercial forest land is without timber management, 
in contrast to 65 percent of the private land (table 
19). Of the public lands, those in State and local 
government ownership rank below Federal forests 
in extent of management. 
2% INTENSIVE 
(10 million acres) 
Ji \T%s 
FAIR EXTENSIVE 
yyy jy 
Za 
KA 4 
eek 
<S 
NONOPERATING S& 
\ 
atatatate 
ectatatets 
atatatate 
ratoncteten 
eats 
seavetets 
sete 
eteretens 
re 
SRR REELS 
se% 
raretatetet 
Ficure 16.—Management status of commercial forest lands, 
1945, 
Tas_eE 19.—Management status of commercial 
forest lands, 1945 
Management Grade 
Commer- 
a cial ; 
Ownership class | forest In- | Extensive ith.| Non- 
area ten- oper- 
sive |Good] Fair | 04 jating . 
Million 
acres Percent |Percent|Percent |Percent| Percent 
PrivateM ese ee 345 1 + 18 
PuUbDICR eee ee 116 7 51 15 14 13, 
National forest 74 9 61 17 1 12 
Other Federal 15 3 31 19 28 19 
State and local 27 2 37 8 40 13 
+Part of these lands receives fire protection. 
The management status of national forests is 
best in the North, where all of their acreage is 
under management—26 percent intensive and 74 
50 Miscellaneous Publication 668, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
