physical improvements; some for planting, stand 
improvement, erosion check dams, etc.; and some 
for the acquisition of land uneconomic for private 
ownership. 
Although, protection, road building, and other 
similar activities on public forest land need to be 
accelerated, the scale of these activities is much 
closer to the ultimately desired level than are the 
actual timber-growing phases. ‘There are the equiv- 
alent of about 42 full-time foresters engaged in 
timber-management activities on Montana national 
forests. This means that each forester has the re- 
sponsibility for the timber-management work on 
200,000 acres. 
Experience in the South indicates that it is 
profitable to employ one forester for 5,000 to 25,000 
acres of commercial forest. That intensity of timber 
management is not considered feasible in Montana 
because of the lower growth potential and other 
factors. Nevertheless, the effort put into timber 
growing on Montana national forests should be very 
much greater than it is. This is also true of State 
forests and other publicly managed lands. 
Intensifying Private Land Management 
Only one-fourth of Montana’s forest area is priv- 
ately owned, but when proper account is taken of 
quality, private holdings are more important that 
this percentage indicates. Almost one-third of the 
commercial forest land, and an even larger per- 
centage of the most accessible and productive land, 
is privately owned. The many properties that make 
up the private forest vary in size from a few acres 
to hundreds of thousands of acres. Four companies, 
each with holdings of 150,000 acres or more of 
commercial forest land, own about 55 percent of 
the private forest in western Montana. 
Large private owners contribute to the over- 
cutting of saw timber in western Montana. ‘They 
therefore have a major responsibility along with 
the State and small private owners to bring the 
cut, particularly of ponderosa pine, down to a level 
that can be sustained. While there is some excellent 
forest management on large private holdings, the 
over-all management record of these owners is still 
not satisfactory in that the requirements for sus- 
tained yield at a high level are not being met. One 
of the bright spots in the Montana forestry situa- 
tion today, however, is the very encouraging signs 
of progress so far as large private-forest manage- 
ment is concerned. In 1949 the four large owners 
Forest Resources of Montana 
had 832,000 acres certified as tree farms.”* This is 
significant as evidence that these owners intend 
to practice good forestry on part of their holdings. 
The small private-forest holdings in Montana 
differ from the large holdings in two main respects: 
(1) They are more accessible and closer to the 
valley floor, and (2) they have been more heavily 
used. Figures to illustrate the latter point are avail- 
able only for western Montana. Approximately 23 
percent of the small private-forest area in that part 
of the State contains saw-timber stands. Almost 
60 percent of the large private area bears saw-tim- 
ber stands. It should be borne in mind that these 
hgures in no way indicate the rate of cutting. Many 
acres cut over by the large companies were later 
sold to small owners, primarily for grazing purposes. 
As in many other sections of the United States, 
the most critical and perplexing part of the forest 
situation involves the small private owner (/9). 
There has been relatively little good forestry on 
small timber holdings in Montana and few signs 
of improvement. For example, only 35 of them 
were Classified as tree farms at the end of 1949. 
This is less than 1 percent of the number of small 
forest properties. 
Several factors contribute to the poor showing 
of the small private owner. No doubt the most im- 
portant one is the time element, that is, the long 
waiting period involved in growing trees, which 
contributes to a lack of financial incentive. Very 
often the small owner’s pressing need for money 
tempts him to skim off all of the value and forget 
about the future. Unfortunately, in most instances 
properly managed young stands have no greater 
market value than poorly managed stands at the 
present time. 
Good management in this region is further 
handicapped by economic problems already dis- 
cussed, which make it impractical to fully utilize 
the timber. Then, also, many small properties not 
connected with farms suffer the handicap of size. 
They are too small to be anything but a side line, 
and as such they are neglected. 
The absence of notable progress or hopeful signs 
*S'The tree-farm movement, sponsored by the Western Pine 
Association in this region, came into Montana in 1947. It is 
effort by industry to improve forest practices in the United 
States. Tree farms have been described as follows (3): “A 
tree farm is generally defined as ‘an area of privately owned 
forest land dedicated to the growing of forest crops for com- 
mercial purposes, protected and managed for continuous 
production of forest products.’ ” 
or 
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