HOW UNITED STATES CAN MEET PULP-WOOD REQUIREMENTS. 61 
United States, affecting lumber and practically every other forest product. Pulp 
wood, because of its competitive advantages, might be better off than most of 
the others. 
POSSIBLE GROWTH UNDER INTENSIVE FOREST MANAGEMENT. 
Intensive forest management, which would force our forest lands to their 
greatest effort, will require effective protection against fire; and methods of cut- 
ting the mature timber that insure prompt and complete reforestation. It will 
require the selection and concentration of growth on the best species in each 
region. It will require cultural operations such as thinnings, which alone can 
keep the stand at optimum growth and which in Europe yield, and in this country 
may be expected to yield, a revenue from forest land before the main crop reaches 
maturity. It will require a cut so regulated that no more than the equivalent of 
the current growth in the whole forest will be taken annually or periodically. It 
will require a grasp of technical methods of timber growing comparable with what 
has slowly been developed for producing timber crops in Europe, and for pro- 
ducing agricultural crops in the United States. To make the practice of inten- 
sive forestry universal, or even the rule, throughout the United States can at best 
be only a gradual process. Forest land can not be brought to its full growing 
power in a short time. 
Based upon the best data that we now have on the growth of American trees 
and forest types, checked by European experience, it is estimated that our 470 
million acres of forest land could ultimately be made to produce in the neighbor- 
hood of 27 billion cubic feet annually. (Table 47.) Such a yield leaves a fairly 
comfortable margin over the present annual cut of 22 \ billion cubic feet, but a 
rather narrow margin when the increased present drain, estimated at 2| billion 
cubic feet, from fires, insects, and disease is added. Intensive forest manage- 
ment, however, must strive to reduce this loss. The more successful such efforts 
are, the greater will be the margin between present requirements and possible 
ultimate timber growth, with corresponding leeway for increased utilization to 
supply our growing demands for pulp wood, lumber, and other products. 
The margin between the present drain on our forests and the possible growth on 
our entire area of forest land under intensive forestry exceeds 22 million cords, 
and more than half of this total, or something over 12 million cords, is of pulp 
species. We now lose about 20 million cords of timber each year through fire, 
insect infestations, fungous diseases, and windfall, and more than half of this is 
pulp timber. To these possible amounts of wood that may become available 
in the continental United States, must be added 2 million cords a year to cover 
estimated growth in southern and southeastern Alaska. There is thus a possible 
total of 14 million cords, plus the 5 or 6 million cords additional which ought to be 
saved from fire, insects, and disease, to be drawn upon in providing for an in- 
crease of our pulp-wood cut from the present 4| million cords to the objective 
of 15 million cords previously set. To what extent this timber will, if grown, be 
actually available for use by the pulp and paper industry will depend upon the 
amount and severity of competition by other industries for the same timber. 
The possibility of using small timber from thinnings, thereby increasing tim- 
ber growth, and of using the smaller and more defective logs in connection with 
operations requiring high-grade timber, should tend to make the solution of the 
problem much easier. Our greatest future difficulties will unquestionably be in 
supplying the high-grade material for such products as lumber, which requires a 
long growing period. It is fortunate that our resources are not limited to the 
possibilities of growing pulp wood on the basis of present manufacturing prac- 
tices, which alone have been included in the estimates of possible pulp-wood cut 
in the regional discussions. 
