a big job for millions of people 



More Americans, young and old, participate in 

 planting trees than in any other single forestry 

 activity. Yet this keen interest and the greatly 

 increased rate of planting in recent years are not 

 enough in themselves to accomplish in the re- 

 quired time the tremendous tree planting job 

 that still faces this Nation. Fifty-two million 

 acres, an area the size of Maryland, Indiana, 

 and Maine combined, must be planted — the 

 sooner, the better — if they are to produce the 

 wood they should. More than four-fifths of these 

 now idle lands are in the East, mostly in small 

 private ownerships. 



For additional millions of acres on which, today, 

 too few trees are growing, planting would make 

 the difference between good production and 

 poor. And on many areas now being cut where 

 nature will take too long to bring trees back to 

 the land, man should do the job. 



At least three-fourths of the recently cut lands 

 owned by forest industries and the public are 

 being left in reasonably good growing condition. 

 Some farmers and other small forest owners like- 

 wise take real pride in their timberlands, and 

 use every practical measure to insure good 

 crops for future harvest. The truth is, however, 

 that on over half of America's recently cut form 

 and other small private forests, conditions for 

 timber growth are far from good; they are most 

 serious in the South. 



To improve growing conditions and the quality 

 of timber on these lands, all of our forestry 

 knowledge and skills must be brought into 

 play — in harvesting, in thinning and other par- 

 tial cutting, in pruning, and in removing useless 

 growth that is choking out desirable trees. Re- 

 building the millions of small forests, represent- 

 ing over half of all the commercial forest land, 

 is one of America's most important forestry jobs. 



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