Chapter II 

 RESOURCE SITUATION- 1970 



This chapter describes the Nation's land area 

 that is in the forest-range environment. In 

 addition, using procedures described in Chapter 

 I, estimates are presented of 1970 livestock 

 management activities on these lands and their 

 impact on 22 output values." The data presented 

 provide the basis for evaluating the various 

 management alternatives described in Chapter 

 V, Analysis of Alternative Mixtures of Re- 

 source Use. 



LAND BASE— 1970 



Forest-range environment, lands in native 

 and natural grasslands, and commercial and 



noncommercial forest that can produce vegeta- 

 tion grazable by livestock, comprise 1,202 mil- 

 lion acres. This represents 63 percent of the 

 total land area in the 48 conterminous States. 



Every State has a significant amount of 

 forest-range (fig. 8). In 35 States more than 

 one-half of all the land is forest-range; the 

 proportions approach or exceed 90 percent in 

 such widely dispersed States as Maine, New 

 Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyo- 

 ming. Even some States with high populations 

 have a sizable proportion of forest-range lands. 

 New Jersey, for example, with an area of 4.8 

 million acres, has an estimated 2.2 million 

 acres, or 47 percent, in forest-range. Similarly, 

 the traditionally important crop-yielding Mid- 

 west Corn Belt States have sizable acreage. 

 Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio combined 

 have about 16.6 million acres that are classified 

 as forest-range. 



The 11 Western States dominate, however, 

 both in terms of total area and proportion of 

 land in forest-range. The Western States con- 

 tain 622 million acres of forest-range, 83 per 

 cent of the area (table 2). For the other re- 

 gions, the Great Plains has 214 million acres 

 or 53 percent. Southeast 184 million, or 61 per- 

 cent, and Northeast 182 million, or 41 percent. 

 For the Nation, 52 percent of the forest-range 

 lands are in the West, 18 percent are in the 

 Plains, and the Southeast and Northeast re- 

 gions contain 15 percent each. 



Table 2. — Forest-range, improved private pas- 

 ture, and other land by geographic region, 

 1970 



(Million acres) 

 [Totals may not add due to rounding] 



' Detailed tabulations for the 1970 land base, manage- 

 ment activities, and resource outputs are shown in 

 Appendix C. 



Geographic 

 region 



Forest-range 

 environment 



Improved 

 private 

 pasture 



Other 

 land 



Total 

 land 

 area 



Western 



Plains 



Northeast _ 

 Southeast _ 



621.7 

 213.9 

 182.0 

 184.1 



8.9 

 24.0 

 39.9 

 28.3 



122.4 



169.3 



219.4 



88.0 



752.9 

 407.2 

 441.2 

 300.4 



Total 



1,201.6 



101.1 



599.1 



1,901.8 



19 



