Conclusions 
HE principal task with which the Forest 
Survey has been charged is to provide a 
factual basis upon which and 
national forest policy may be built. This report 
on forest resources in the Upper Peninsula, however, 
would not be complete without some conclusions 
as to what the major objectives of such policy 
should be. 
regional 
Present Forestry Practices Unsatisfactory 
Neither the rate of cutting, method of cutting, 
nor the provisions for caring for young growth are 
at present conducive to maintenance of per- 
manent forest industries in the Upper Peninsula. 
Exploitation Too Rapid 
The old-growth forests, particularly the pine and 
northern hardwoods, which provide the founda- 
tion for the bulk of the sawmills and miscellaneous 
wood-using industries are being cut at a rate which 
will exhaust the loggable stands within 20 years. 
To bring it into balance with available supplies 
and current growth, drain on saw timber as a 
whole would have to be decreased 22 percent, 
and for the critical species—sugar maple, bass- 
wood, and pine—as much as 30 to 40 percent. 
Excess sawmill capacity is a part of the problem. 
In the older logging districts, it is simply out of 
the question to maintain all of the existing in- 
dustries on a permanent basis. The sawlog require- 
ments of mills in Menominee and southern Iron 
County is seven times the sustained-yield capacity 
of the surrounding timberlands. It would take 
four times the prospective volume of timber to 
maintain permanently the mills in the territory 
surrounding Escanaba and Manistique. A ma- 
jorty of the large mills in the Sault Ste. Marie 
territory and the Keweenaw Peninsula have 
already closed or are operating on the remnants of 
once large holdings. 
In areas accessible to markets, the commonest 
method of logging is clear-cutting, which means 
23 
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that practically all merchantable products, in- 
cluding cordwood, are removed or destroyed. 
Frequently the original operation for sawlogs is 
followed by additional operations for ties, chemical 
wood, pulpwood, and firewood. Not infrequently, 
the slashings from these operations are consumed 
by fire. A clear-cutting operation, when nct 
followed by fire, may leave the land in good condi- 
tion for restocking, but for most types a period of 
at least 80 or 100 years must elapse before another 
crop of merchantable timber can be produced. 
Although private owners control 94 percent of 
the standing saw timber, the total is so widely dif- 
fused between individual holdings that few have 
blocks sufficiently large and well-consolidated to 
permit Few of the 
operating timberland owners have more than a 
10-year supply of standing timber for their mills. 
Only 7 or 8 in the entire peninsula have enough 
timber for as long as a 20-year operation, and 
these holdings are more or less scattered and out of 
reach of existing mils. The great majority of 
private timberland owners, judging from current 
practices, are disposed toward liquidation of in- 
vestment in standing timber and transfer of cut- 
over lands to public ownership or to farms. Pres- 
sure of taxes and other carrying charges, and 
problems of corporation finance undoubtedly con- 
tribute toward adoption of short-term operating 
policies. 
In districts with farming possibilities, the large 
permanent management. 
land companies are primarily interested in disposing 
of land for agriculture, and will probably not be 
inclined to encourage reforestation. The same 
disregard for potential forestry values is maintained 
by many individual farmers. 
The public forests are helping to maintain a few 
small permanent industries and they promise to 
contribute still more in the future, but neither 
State nor Federal forests are sufficiently extensive 
nor sufficiently well supplied with merchantable 
timber to exert a major influence in the present 
situation. 
