106 



TIMBER TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES 



private lands; whereas the bulk of the present 

 standing timber in the West, particularly in the 

 Rocky Mountains, is on national forests and other 

 public lands. 



Softwoods Concentrated 



on Public Lands — Hardwoods on Private Lands 



About 86 percent of the Nation's hardwood saw- 

 timber is on private lands — roughly 12 percent on 

 forest industry holdings and 74 percent in farm 

 and miscellaneous private ownerships (table 71). 

 This hardwood timber inventory is widely dis- 

 tributed over large numbers of farm and other 

 nonindustrial holdings on which forest manage- 

 ment is generally lacking. In all types of owner- 

 ship most of the hardwood timber is in trees of 

 relatively small diameter and low quality. 



Public holdings include 61 percent of the soft- 

 wood growing stock in the Nation, but only 16 

 percent of the hardwoods (table 71). A much 

 larger percentage of the softwood sawtimber — two- 

 thirds of the total — is in public holdings, mainly 

 in the national forests. 



This concentration of the preferred softwoods in 

 public ownership together with the inventory-cut 

 relationships illustrated in figure 45, points to 

 increasing dependence on publicly held stumpage 

 in the near future. Utilization of timber in the 

 national forests and other public holdings has been 

 steadily increasing, but full development is still 

 limited by lack of adequate roads. This is par- 

 ticularly the situation in the more remote and 

 mountainous areas of both the Rocky Mountains 

 and the Pacific coast. 



Growth-Cut Relationships 

 Differ Between Ownerships 



Forest industry lands supply a higher propor- 

 tion of the cut than that indicated by the area 

 owned, while farm and miscellaneous private 

 lands contribute lower proportions of the growth 

 and cut than the area in these holdings (table 72 

 and fig. 45). Proportions of growth and cut also 

 differ sharply from the distribution of inventory 

 volumes. Thus the share of the Nation's growth 

 and cut in national forests is substantially less 

 than the proportion of total inventories. 



Both growth and cut per acre on lands belong- 

 ing to forest industries in 1962 were substantially 

 above the average of all ownerships (fig. 48). 



GROWTH AND CUT OF SAWTIMBER BY OWNERSHIP 



1962 



700 



600 



500 



East 



Growth Wi Cut 



2> 400 



300 



a 

 -o 200 



100 



National 

 Forest 



Other 

 Public 



Industry 



Farm And 

 Misc. 



National 

 Forest 



Industry Farm And 

 Misc. 



Figure 48 



