Today and Tomorrow

Above: A mill worker scales logs; just so we measure our lumber supply.

FOREST LAND AND TIMBER RESOURCES

C. EDWARD BEHRE.

ONE OF EVERY THREE ACRES in the United States is forest land. The forests are important in all regions except the Great Plains, but even there they occupy almost 10 percent, of the land. After more than 300 years of settlement, three-fourths of New England is classified as forest land. Five-sixths of the Douglas-fir region, on the other side of the country, is in forest. In the South, more than half of all the land is chiefly valuable for forests.

That is enough ultimately to grow all the timber products we need, with a margin for export, new uses, and national security if it is properly managed. But our forests are not now in condition to meet prospective needs.

The acreage of forest land is not likely to change much from the present 624 million acres. For the most part, today's forest land is that which has proved unsuited for agriculture because of roughness, stoniness, poor soils, aridity, or other circumstances.

It includes much worn-out or low-grade land that at one time or another has been cultivated. Additional acres of the poor cropland are likely to revert to forest use, but some of the better lands now in forests will be cleared for agriculture. There will also be reductions for urban development, construction of highways, and other facilities, but these will not be large.

About three-fourths of the forest land, 461 million acres, is classed as "commercial," capable now or prospectively of growing merchantable timber, and available for that use. The remainder, 163 million acres, classed as "noncommercial" because it is not suitable and not available for timber growing, is important for watershed, range, and other services. Mostly in the West and the plains of Texas and Oklahoma, it includes, for example, the open-grown mesquite and pinyon-juniper lands of the Southwest, the chaparral in southern California, and alpine mountain forests. Included also are some 13 million acres of better sites set apart for parks and game preserves.

In present or potential productiveness, the forest lands of the South and of the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest are outstanding. Climate and other factors there favor forest renewal and rapid timber growth. Those regions have 45 percent of the commercial forest.

It is too bad, but too little of the commercial forest is producing as it should. More than 75 million acres--one-sixth of the total is denuded or is so poorly stocked with seedlings and saplings as to be unproductive for decades. In addition, 30 million acres of pole timber, too small for sawlogs, and 58 million acres of second-growth saw timber have less than 40 percent of the number of trees needed for full stocking. Most of the denuded and poorly stocked land is in the East; the southern forests are the most deficient.

The idle land contributes little to the maintenance of schools, roads, or other community services. It supports no jobs. In some regions it contributes needlessly to destructive floods and the siltation of reservoirs. Taxes, if paid, must come from some other productive enterprise.

It is reasonable to assume that the acreage of poorly stocked land will shrink as a result of improved fire protection and better cutting practices. Indeed, stocking in the South is better than it was a decade ago. Young growth is springing up on millions of acres now protected from fire a hopeful sign. Nevertheless, the United States faces a huge job of planting to restore the less favored lands to productivity.

Character of ownership is a fundamental factor in the forest situation. Most private ownership is, properly, motivated by financial gain. Seventy-five percent of the commercial forest land, generally including the more productive and accessible, is privately owned and furnishes about 90 percent of the timber cut. In contrast, only about 40 percent of the noncommercial forest is in private ownership.

One-third of all the forest land is publicly owned or managed, but half of this is noncommercial. The national forests include the major part of the public forest land. Placing the national forests about one-twelfth of our total land area under intensive management has been hampered by remoteness and inaccessibility, by poorly consolidated ownership, and by inadequate funds. Yet steady progress has been made and these forests are contributing increasingly to the economy.

The nature of the ownership of the 345 million acres of private commercial forest is largely the result of national land policies that favored small-scale, fee-simple ownership. Seventy-six percent of the private commercial forest is in more than 4 million small properties that average only 62 acres each. The other 24 percent is held in properties of more than 5,000 acres each by only 3,600 owners. Even in the West more than half is in small holdings.

Wood-using industries, directly dependent on timberlands for their raw material, own a surprisingly small part of the private commercial forest. Lumber and pulp companies together hold only 15 percent, some 51 million acres in all, mostly in large holdings. On the other hand, the 139 million acres of farm woods is the largest single category of forest land.

Farm ownership generally affords a favorable setting for forestry, and public policy has long encouraged farmers to make woodland management an integral part of the farm business. Yet most farm woodlands are still mistreated, being subject to unwise cutting, pasturing, and burning. Along with other small holdings, farm woodlands are at the heart of the Nation's forest problem.

THE TIMBER RESOURCE for 300 years, particularly during the past century, has contributed richly to the development of the country. Now we can see the end of our virgin resources; a timber shortage, the impact of which has been deferred by almost 20 years of depression and war, is brought into sharp relief by the demands of the present high level of industrial activity. There is a great need for housing that will not be satisfied for many years. Wholesale prices for lumber in 1948 were three times as high as in 1940, and they have risen much faster than those of other building materials. Suitable locations for large-scale logging operations are increasingly hard to find.

No longer can timber safely be viewed as a reserve to be drawn upon without regard for replacement. Now we must rely more and more on what is grown each year.

When timber is grown as a crop, the amount that can be regularly harvested year after year depends upon the volume of growing stock or standing timber. Until the productive capacity of the land is reached, the more growing stock or forest capital there is, the greater the crop available for cutting each year. And to maintain an annual crop of merchantable timber, there must be a succession of age classes from seedlings up to full-grown timber so that as mature trees are cut new ones will take their places. Thus to sustain a high output of timber products, we must maintain a substantial volume of standing timber as forest capital. If we liquidate our forest capital, we cut down the size of the crop which accrues as interest on it. This does not apply strictly to virgin forests, because in them death and decay usually offset current growth. They do not fully meet the growing-stock concept until they have been converted to a net growing condition by removal of overmature trees.

Since the timber crop must be harvested in trees of a size and quality suitable for commercial use, and since about 80 percent of all timber products are cut from trees of saw-timber size, it is important to think of the timber crop primarily in terms of saw timber.

As of 1945, the stand of saw timber in the United States was estimated at 1,601 billion board feet, about half of which is in virgin stands. The volume of all timber 5 inches or more in diameter breast high was 470 billion cubic feet. Those are large figures. But critical examination shows that the forest capital is by no means satisfactory.

For one thing, growing stock east of the Great Plains is badly depleted. The land is generally understocked and much of the timber is of small size and inferior quality. Although fully three-fourths of the commercial forest land is in the East, the timber there, 558 billion board feet, is little more than one-third of the national total.

On the other hand, Washington, Oregon, and California have less than one-seventh of the commercial forest land, but they have more than half the saw timber in the United States. About 80 percent of the 1,043 billion board feet of saw timber in the entire West is in virgin stands. Although the average volume needed as growing stock for future crops will generally be less than in the virgin stands, the backlog of forest capital in those stands is an extremely important part of our timber supply and should be husbanded.

The occurrence of different species and the replacement of the valuable species by inferior species is another factor. Timber in the West is almost all softwood, the kind that is in greatest demand for the major industrial uses, but in the North just about three-fourths is hardwood. There is now only 15 billion board feet of white and red pines, species that once were foremost in our lumber markets. Maine is the only Northern State with more softwood than hardwood. Even in the South, noted for its vast pine forests and prolific second growth, 43 percent of the saw timber today is hardwood.