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Show Sees Forest Conservation Need: Vast Areas of Spent Timberland Attest to Careless Practices contributed so bountifully to the development de-velopment of the Middle West are now little more than memories. Although Al-though some old growth chiefly hardwood still remains, the most significant aspect is the large proportion pro-portion of inferior species, notably jack pine and aspen, in the second growth. Having looked in vain for timber surpluses in other important forest regions, we turn at last to the West coast. The timber of Idaho and Montana was almost untouched up to 1900. But the wave of depletion is rolling through this country with startling speed. In Idaho the five northern counties were opened up first and were soon pretty thoroughly exploited. ex-ploited. Output reached a peak of 705 million board feet in 1925. In 1937 it was only 292 million. Obviously payrolls in these northern counties declined in about the same ration as lumber production. Towns like Sand-point Sand-point and Coeur d'Aiene were hard hit and Spokane turned its eyes from the panhandle of Idaho to the Grand Coulee dam. The increased output now coming from the five counties farther south rests on a precarious base. Only one-tenth one-tenth of the 10 million acres of forest for-est in North Idaho is in white pine sawtimber yet this tenth is bearing By LYLE F. WATTS (Chief U. S. Forest Service) Recently, in an address before be-fore a section of the Society of American Foresters at Milwaukee, Mil-waukee, Wis., I discussed the nation's forest situation and presented the need for reasonable rea-sonable public control of the treatment of private forest lands. In commenting on that paper, a friend of mine ... alleged al-leged that, "In normal periods pe-riods the basic American forestry for-estry problem is not one of scarcities but of surpluses, example, were built of yellow poplar. pop-lar. Yellow poplar grows almost as fast as any of our softwoods and is Just as easily worked. But today it is far too precious to put into barns. It is no longer a significant part of the stock of the local lumber yards. All the big pine operations are now gone from the Missouri Ozarks. Output Out-put of softwood lumber in Missouri in 1942 was only 30 million board feet. Yet in 1899 most of the three-fourths three-fourths billion board feet of lumber cut in that state was softwood. Throughout the hill country from eastern Ohio to western Missouri, millions of acres of once magnificent hardwood forests have degenerated into mere brush cover. Manv of the not of timber famine but of timber abundance." I want to explore that philosophy because, be-cause, if it is true, there is really no occasion for much concern about forest conservation. conser-vation. In discussing this question of scarcity scar-city versus abundance, I want to make it clear that forestry is something some-thing more than boards, ties, cord-wood cord-wood and other forest products. To me forestry has a human side. It encompasses permanent communities communi-ties with prosperous industries and a stable tax base. It means good schools, public health and attractive X t xljxj " ' " ' v' . "V-; - .. -A" HV-" vj J X J. vf ? ' 1 the brunt of current cut. White pine output is now 1V times what the forests for-ests can sustain. But even within this region, the apparent surplus is local in character. charac-ter. The only area still largely undeveloped un-developed is a portion of southern Oregon. In the older districts. notably around Puget Sound, the bulk of the readily accessible saw-timber saw-timber has been removed. Sawmills have shut down and pulp mills have assumed greater importance. The available stand is no longer as large as the growing stock needed to sustain sus-tain a cut commensurate with the growth capacity of the land.' The lower Columbia river district with 170 large mills and 40 billion feet of sawtimber is already feeling the pinch of scarcity. About half of the private sawtimber belongs to two large companies. Most of the other mills face difficulty in getting the timber they need for long-time operation. I want to close by stating my conviction con-viction that a comprehensive legislative legis-lative charter is needed to give effect ef-fect to a' well-rounded national forest for-est policy and to strengthen the foundation for timely postwar action in the forestry field. homes. It means security for the worker to Invest in a home and for the butcher, the baker, and beauty shop keeper to invest in a business. Seventy per cent of New England Is forest land, but 75 per cent of all the wood products consumed in New England comes from outside the region. re-gion. The only evidence of surplus, so far as I know, is in small low-grade low-grade material which cannot be marketed even under the intense demand de-mand of the huge industrial population. popu-lation. The hurricane of 1938, followed by abnormal wartime requirements for box boards, has left only scattered remnants of merchantable white pine in central New England. Scarcity Scar-city of stumpage forced several of the leading operators in Massachu-t Massachu-t setts to move out of that state recently. re-cently. Even in the wild lands of Maine, most of which have been SOne OVer SPVPml timAC Innninn Even in New England, where this huge red oak lowering 130 feet up and measuring almost 20 feel in circumference circumfer-ence was cut, there is no real timber surplus. hardwood industries of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys must now pay heavy transportation charges for raW material from other regions in order to continue operation. Some of them face extinction. The lake states affords one of the most serious chapters of our forest history. Here are some 52 million acres of generally level forest land, favorably located with reference to important industrial in-dustrial and agricultural sections. sec-tions. Extensive clear .cutting and uncontrolled forest fire have made a large part of this area an economic liability. The white pine and red pine which . j .v66.w6 operations since colonial times, the average cut of pulpwood, taking all that is considered merchantable from the ground, is estimated at only four cords per acre. Such an average certainly implies no troublesome surplus of available timber. Not , so many generations ago Pennsylvania was the leading source of the nation's lumber supply. In 1941 it ranked 23rd among the states with an output of less than 1 per cent of the total. The original pine forests have been largely replaced by scrub oak and other hardwoods as a result of fire following logging. The forest survey for Virginia showed sawtimber growth in 1940 some 25 per cent in excess of drain by cutting. So perhaps we should find a timber surplus here. But of what significance is an excess of growth over drain when lumber output out-put is only about half of what it was 30 years earlier? The decline in Virginia's Vir-ginia's lumber output is a reflection of sawtimber scarcity. Stands with as much as 8,000 board feet per acre occupy less than 4 per cent of the total forest area. More wood was consumed by non-lumber use than for lumber in 1940. The coastal plain and Piedmont Pied-mont regions of the Deep South contain over 150 million acres of land wonderfully adapted to tree growth but not well suited for other purposes. AH but a small fraction of the old-growth timber I has been cut so that any surplus must be in second growth. Almost three-fourths of this great acreage is in thrifty second growth, yet the growing stock is rated at , less than half of what it should be. Some 10 million acres, mostly in the longleaf pine belt of the coastal plain, lie denuded. Only one-fourth of the total cubic volume of pine is sawlog material and almost three-fourths three-fourths of that is in trees less than 16 inches in diameter. In spite of the ease of reproduction and the exceptionally rapid growth of the more valuable pines, hardwoods now account for almost 60 per cent of the cubic volume of all trees. The timber supply is vital to the great agricultural states of the Middle Mid-dle West. The situation became so acute in 1942 that two large farm cooperatives bought sawmills in distant dis-tant forest regions in order to be sure of having the lumber they needed. Had the forests of this region been given proper care frorrtMhe beginning, begin-ning, farmers might still be able to meet many of their needs from local timber. Most of the older barns in southern Ohio and Indiana, for |