15 



is not now much tendency for softwoods to replace hardwoods, and 

 there is not likely to be, because they have not the strength or other 

 properties to make them acceptable as substitutes. The replacement 

 of hardwood by other materials is to be welcomed where those mate- 

 rials make for better service and cheaper cost. Where they will not, 

 and experience thus far shows this list to be a large one, the problem 

 of a hardwood shortage must be solved in another way. 



There seems to be but one practicable solution, and that is to main- 

 tain permanently under a proper sj^stem of forestry a sufficient area 

 of hardwood land to produce by growth a large proportion of the 

 hardwood timber which the nation requires. 



Where is this land to be found? Not in the Ohio Valley, the 

 Lake States, or the Mississippi Valley, for the reasons already given. 

 It is to be found in the Appalachian Mountains. These mountains 

 increased their proportion in the nation's hardwood output from 42 

 to 48 per cent during the past seven years. On the principle of using 

 the land for its highest purpose they should further increase their 

 proportion to not less than 75 per cent. Other sections of the country 

 will readily furnish the remaining 25 per cent. 



APPALACHIANS THE KEY Tt) THE SITUATION. 



The mountain ranges from Maine to Alabama should be made 

 to produce the greater part of the hardwood supply, because grow- 

 ing hardwood timber is their most profitable use. There is, in 

 fact, no other use to which the surface of these mountains can per- 

 manently be put. That they can not be successfully farmed has been 

 l^roved in thousands of cases. For the most part they can not even 

 be permanently grazed. 



It is in the production of timber that they excel. They bear the 

 greatest variety of species and the best remaining hardwood growth 

 anywhere to be found. Freed from their enemies — fire and unwise 

 cutting — their forests readily reproduce the best kinds of timber. 

 Outside of local areas of the Pacific coast nowhere else is forest growth 

 so rapid. Even land cleared and farmed to the complete exhaustion 

 of its soil will in this region in time reclothe itself with forests, if only 

 it is protected. 



Field estimates by counties show that south of Pennsylvania there 

 are in the Appalachians 58 million acres of forest land, practically 

 all of which is covered by hardwood and over 85 per cent of which 

 is in a cut-over or culled condition. Including the mountains of 

 Pennsylvania, New York, and New England it is probably safe to 

 estimate that the entire Appalachian area includes as much as 

 75 million acres j^rimarily adapted for hardwood timber. Only a 

 very small part of this is still in virgin growth. By far the great 

 part of it has been cut over, and some of it has been cleared. 



[Cir. 116] 



