62 BULLETIN 14 9 7, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
years, a total of 16.000 to 31.000 acres of land would be needed within 
a reasonable radius of the paper plant. 
Similarly, a small sawmill with a circular saw will consume about 
2.000.000 board feet in a year; and a mill with a single band saw will 
consume 25.000.000 board feet. If the planted timber yields at the 
rate of 20,000 board feet to the acre, the cut from 100 and 1.250 
acres of plantation a year, respectively, will be required to keep these 
mills running. If it takes 60 years to grow the saw timber, there 
must be 60.000 and 75.000 acres of land respectively for the two sizes 
of mill. The areas when worked out in this way are large, but they 
are the areas that must be available to any wood-using industry 
which is to be operated on a sustained yield of forest products. 
The private owner, for whom it is more profitable to grow timber 
on a short rotation, may not exceed the areas given for his enter- 
prise, but the public owner can most profitably grow large timber 
over longer periods and should have forest units considerably larger 
than those mentioned. If forest areas as large as these are not 
feasible for individual owners, they are distinctly so for groups of 
owners in the same locality who combine to plant and grow timber, 
each on his own land, with the idea of selling a part or all of his 
product, and thus maintaining permanently the local wood-using 
industries. 
PROTECTION FROM FIRE 
The third point in a reforestation policy, and it is perhaps import- 
ant enough to be placed first, is the provision for effective protection 
from fire. One of the essentials for any investment is that it be 
reasonably safe. Unless a fire-protection organization is maintained, 
no investment in the idle lands of the northern Lake States is safe. 
Protection is being provided in a measure, and is being improved 
each year, by the State organizations. It should continue to be 
strengthened until the area burned over annually is reduced to a 
fraction of 1 per cent or until the growing timber on the land, 
whether planted or otherwise, is safe enough to be insurable at reason- 
able rates. 
Actually, the protection of plantations from fire is likely to be 
much more thorough and effective than it would be on equally 
valuable areas of natural second growth, because the expenditure of 
money in planting acts as a strong stimulus to the owner to protect 
his investment. Therefore, as the number and area of plantations 
increase, the protection of the plantations, as well as of areas sur- 
rounding them, and of the forest lands of the region as a whole, will 
become more effective. 
POLICY FOR STATE-OWXED LANDS 
The States should take the lead in the development of a general 
reforestation policy by working out a policy for the reforestation 
of State-owned denuded lands. Such a policy was prepared for 
the State of Michigan in 1915 (67) to provide for the reforestation 
of the State forest land — a comparatively small area at that time. 
The total area of idle land in each of the three States is so large 
that the State governments can not be expected by themselves to 
reforest more than a part of them. They should, however, by tax 
