WHEN OUR COUNTRY IS FIFTY YEARS OLDER 



577 



About 2 per cent of the total land area 

 will forever remain desert. There are 

 but few areas within the United States 

 which, on account of the intense heat, 

 very low temperatures, alkali, or lack of 

 rainfall, are unfit for the use of man and 

 may be truly considered desert land. 

 Such land is found in the Southwest 

 about the Gulf of California, in Nevada, 

 in Utah, and in Oregon in the form of 

 arid basins. Ice-bound deserts are found 

 in Alaska and on the glacier-covered 

 mountains. This land must, so long as 

 the climatic conditions of the country 

 continue as they are, remain unpro- 

 ductive. 



wiUv our forests be sufficient for our 

 needs 



The land chiefly valuable for growing 

 forests will shrink to about 360,000,000 

 acres, less than one-fifth of the extent of 

 the United States proper. Together with 

 the wood lots, which will continue to form 

 part of the farm land, the total forest 

 area will amount to approximately 450,- 

 000,000 acres, or a fourth of the total 

 land area. 



Will this area be sufficient to provide a 

 population of 150,000,000 people with 

 all the timber needed for construction, 

 ties, poles, pulp, and all the various uses 

 for which wood seems to be the only suit- 

 able material, and to protect the soil 

 from erosion, regulate the stream flow, 

 and exert its wholesome influence upon 

 the lives of the people? 



With the exception of those countries 

 which have naturally a humid climate, 

 like Great Britain or the Netherlands, 

 the countries with a forest area of only 

 20 per cent or less show usually to a 

 marked degree bad climatic conditions, 

 with prolonged droughts, frosts, and al- 

 ternating floods and low water, as a 

 result of the reduced forest area. Por- 

 tugal, with a forest area of only ^V 2 per 

 cent of the total ; Spain, with 16 per 

 cent; Greece, with 13 per cent; Turkey, 

 with 20 per cent ; and Italy, with 14 per 

 cent, are good examples. 



While the area absolutely necessary 

 for the regulation of streams and the pro- 



tection of soils can be determined only ap- 

 proximately and indirectly, the area nec- 

 essary to make a country self-sustaining 

 as regards the production of timber can 

 be found with greater accuracy. If we 

 compare the exports and imports of the 

 different countries with the forest area 

 for every 100 inhabitants, we find that 

 countries with 92 acres or more per 100 

 inhabitants have a surplus of exports 

 over imports, while those with 85 acres 

 or less have a surplus of imports over 

 exports. Apparent exceptions to this rule 

 appear in the cases of Bulgaria and 

 Servia. These countries, while at pres- 

 ent importing more wood than they ex- 

 port, possess considerable areas of forest, 

 now inaccessible, and, with the devel- 

 opment of means of exploitation and the 

 increased demand for lumber, they will 

 in time become exporting countries. 



From this we may infer that a coun- 

 try in order to be self-sustaining as re- 

 gards its timber supply must have an 

 area of about 100 acres of forest land 

 for every 100 inhabitants. The area nec- 

 essary to supply all the wood needed for 

 home consumption will vary, of course, 

 with the per capita consumption ; and 

 the 100 acres per 100 inhabitants must 

 be considered the minimum area, because 

 it is based upon a moderate per capita 

 consumption, such as is found in densely 

 populated countries of Europe, like Ger- 

 many or France. 



The same minimum area for every 100 

 inhabitants necessary to make a country 

 self-sustaining can also be deduced in 

 another way. At present Germany im- 

 ports 353,000,000 cubic feet of wood 

 from abroad. To produce this amount 

 of timber Germany would have to pos- 

 sess a forest area of 17,000,000 acres in 

 addition to the 35,000,000 acres now 

 available. In other words, she would 

 need 52,000,00 acres of forest in order 

 to meet her own timber requirements, or 

 93.2 acres for every 100 inhabitants. 

 Germany is an extremely good example 

 with which the productivity of the forests 

 of all other countries can be compared, 

 because her forests can be taken as a 

 standard of productiveness. 



