THE CAMPAIGN FOR PRIVATE FORESTRY 



By Donald Bruce 



Division of Forestry, University of California 



CALIFORNIA contains some twenty million acres of forest 

 land. If managed under forestry principles, this area, now 

 largely uninhabited, is capable of supporting directly an ultimate 

 population of about one and a half million people, of supplying all 

 the wood needed by the remaining population and industries of the 

 state, and of producing a surplus for export to less fortunate regions 

 farther east. Today, however, forestry is being practiced on but ap- 

 proximately half of this land, for this is the proportion that is in our 

 national forests. Private owners of timberland in the past have done 

 practically nothing toward insuring a second crop of timber. 



The present agitation for an extension of the practice of forestry 

 to privately owned timberland is therefore of great importance to this 

 state. This movement is relatively recent, for although the need has 

 long been realized it is only since the war that definite programs have 

 been crystallized and urged by powerful influences. There are two 

 main rival plans advocated (with several variants), commonly re- 

 ferred to as the Pinchot and the Graves-Greeley programs. 



The first of these was prepared by a committee of the Society of 

 American Foresters, of which Gifford Pinchot, the great leader of the 

 conservation movement, formerly United States Forester, and now 

 State Forester of Pennsylvania, was chairman. It proposes national 

 legislation, creating a commission consisting of the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture, the Secretary of Labor, and the chairman of the Federal 

 Trade Commission, with far-reaching power to regulate the logging 

 of privately owned lands. Working through a system of regional 

 organizations based largely on the existing Forest Service, this com- 

 mission would be authorized to "fix standards and promulgate rules 

 to prevent the devastation and provide for the perpetuation of forest 

 growth" — in other words, to compel the practice of forestry. It would 

 also be empowered specifically, in connection with this primary 

 purpose, to require standardized accounting systems and periodical 

 statistical reports, to control production in certain emergencies, to 

 sanction co-operations of lumbermen when in the public interest, to 



