subsisting mainly on small timber; in many in- 
stances sawlogs being cut average only one-third to 
one-half as large as formerly, and the average is 
getting smaller. Plants using high-grade hardwood 
logs for veneer and other specialty products are 
especially hard hit. The expanding fir-plywood 
industry of the Northwest faces major readjustment 
before it has really hit its stride. Pulp and paper 
companies, though they can use small material, 
often meet stiff competition for softwood timber, 
particularly in the South, and in the North some 
face actual shortage. 
Although much progress in achieving balance be- 
tween plant and woods operations is being made, 
particularly by some pulp and lumber companies, 
the forest industries as a whole are not well geared 
to a sustained timber supply. ‘They own little more 
than one-tenth of the commercial forest. ‘Their 
operations generally are not adapted to complete, 
integrated use of the available timber. Plant ca- 
pacity greater than tributary forests can sustain is 
still a threat to the growing stock in many localities. 
5. A flexible long-range goal for timber growth is 
proposed. Careful study—looking beyond current 
limitations to long-range possibilities because for- 
estry, like the Nation’s growth, is a long-time affair 
—suggests a growth goal of 18 to 20 billion cubic 
feet annually, including 65 to 72 billion board feet 
of saw timber. This visualizes potential domestic 
requirements—the estimated quantity a fully em- 
ployed, prosperous people might use if the timber 
were readily available at reasonable prices—of 61 
billion board feet, which is more than the annual 
saw-timber cut of 55 billion in the prosperous years 
1925-29, or that in the peak war years. The goal 
also includes a margin for irreducible losses, in- 
effective growth, new uses, and exports, and a back- 
log for national security. Setting the goal slightly 
higher or lower would make little difference in the 
program required to reach it. But to aim for much 
less than 72 billion board feet of saw timber an- 
nually would not be sound public policy or con- 
sistent with the responsibilities and needs of a large, 
growing nation. 
6. Attaining this goal means stepping up annual 
growth of all timber by one-half and doubling saw- 
timber growth. This is a big order. For the Na- 
tion as a whole, forest growing stock is below par 
in quantity, quality, and distribution. About 35 
percent (164 million acres) of the commercial forest 
area is deforested or has less than 40 percent of 
full stocking. Nearly half the commercial forest 
Forests and National Prosperity 
With more 
land of the South is in this category. 
than three-fourths of the commercial forest land, 
the East has little more than half the saw-timber 
growing stock needed to sustain its reasonable share 
of the growth goal. 
Nationally, a 469-billion-board-foot deficit in the 
growing stock of the East is partially offset by the 
virgin timber of the West where two-fifths of the 
stands are as yet untouched. However, about one- 
fourth of the commercial forest area of the West 
has been reduced to seedling or sapling growth or is 
denuded, and the active growing stock of young 
timber is only about a third of that needed to reach 
the West’s share of the goal. 
7. Clearly, the goals cannot be achieved for sev- 
eral decades. It would be unrealistic to assume that 
good cutting practices will be generally applied 
within a few years, that adequate protection can be 
promptly achieved, that planting will be under- 
taken on a large enough scale to bring the bulk of 
the idle lands into production within a generation, 
that the construction of access roads into new areas 
will keep sufficiently ahead of the demand to re- 
lieve the pressure for overcutting elsewhere, or that 
cutting operations will be so located as to assure 
continuous high-level output locality by locality. 
But even if all these things could be accomplished, 
it is estimated that saw-timber growth would not 
reach 64 billion board feeet (the level of potential 
domestic requirements and losses) in less than 45 
years. Moreover, if there were to be a good mar- 
gin for national security, export, and the like, grow- 
ing stock would have to be further built up for 
another 25 or 30 years. ‘These calculations—in no 
sense forecasts—assume that for perhaps 30 years 
annual drain would be less than 50 billion board 
feet—some 4 billion below 1944, although output 
of major products since 1945 has actually been 
higher than in 1944. 
8. Meanwhile, the Nation cannot rely on in- 
creased imports. ‘There is a world shortage of tim- 
ber, especially of softwoods for construction. 
Europe, largely self-sufficient in timber before the 
war, will need to import for years to come. The 
forests of Soviet Asia, the East Indies, and the 
Philippines are remote and mostly undeveloped; 
in the main they will go to supply the Orient. 
Central and South America and Africa can supply 
some hardwoods though little construction timber. 
Canada doubtless will continue to be our chief 
source of imports and possibly can furnish some- 
what more pulp and paper, especially newsprint, 
