WHAT THE FOREST SERVICE IS DOING
WHAT THE FOREST SERVICE IS DOING Report of Associate Forester Describes Briefly and Interestingly What Must be Done to Conserve the Forests WHAT the Forest Service has done, what it is now doing...
...They abate the wind and give protection from excessive heat or cold...
...Forests privately owned contain at least four-fifths of the standing timber...
...We can reduce waste in the woods and in the mill at least one-third, with present as well as future profit...
...The boxing of longleaf pine for turpentine has destroyed one-fifth of the forests worked...
...what we have OUR forests now cover 550,000,000 acres, or about one-fourth of the United States...
...We send out of our country one and one-half times as much timber as we bring in...
...The timber privately owned is not only four times that publicly owned, but it is generally more valuable...
...Forestry is now practiced on 70 per cent, of the forests publicly owned and on less than 1 per cent, of the forests privately owned, or on only 18 per cent, of the total area of forests...
...In many respects it is a model which might be followed by other departments of the government with profit to the public...
...An average of only 320 feet of lumber is used for each 1,000 feet which stood in the forest...
...We can practically stop forest fires at a total yearly cost of one-fifth the value of "the standing timber burned each year...
...If these things are done, they will conserve our streams as well as our forests...
...and 100,000,000 acres cut over and burned over, upon which young growth is either wholly lacking or too scanty to make merchantable timber...
...what is waited FOREST fires burn over millions of acres and destroy billions of feet of timber annually...
...Forests publicly owned contain one-fifth of all timber standing...
...where we stand WE TAKE from our forests each year, not counting the loss by fire, three times their yearly growth...
...and we should extend it to other mountain forests more valuable for the permanent benefit of the many than for the temporary profit of a few...
...what is used WE TAKE from our forests yearly, including waste in logging and in manufacture, 20,000,000,000 cubic feet of wood...
...Forests not only grow timber, but they hold the soil and they conserve the streams...
...These little summaries are quoted below in the order in which they appear in the report...
...The loss in the mill is from one-third to two-thirds of the timber sawed...
...We should continue and perfect, by state and nation, the preservation by use of forests already publicly owned...
...Nearly all our native commercial trees grow much faster than those of Europe...
...The conservation of public forests is the smaller task before the nation and the States...
...where we might stand BY REASONABLE thrift we can produce a constant timber supply beyond our present need, and with it conserve the usefulness of our streams for irrigation, water supply, navigation, and power...
...250,000,000 acres partly cut over or burned over, but restocking naturally with enough young growth to produce a merchantable crop...
...The condition of the world supply of timber makes us already dependent upon what we produce...
...But if we act vigorously and at once we shall escape permanent timber scarcity...
...We should make the timber logged go further by preservative treatment and by avoiding needless loss in the woods, the mill, the factory, and in use...
...The larger task is to induce private forest owners, which means 3,000,000 men, to take care of what they have, and to teach wood users, which means everyone, how not to waste...
...But so far, lands successfully planted to trees make a total area smaller than Rhode Island...
...We have 200,000,000 acres of mature forests, in which yearly growth is balanced by decay...
...We shall suffer for timber to meet our needs until our forests have had time to grow again...
...We already grow post timber in twenty to thirty years, mine timber in twenty-five to thirty-five years, tie timber in thirty-five to forty years, and saw timber in thirty to seventy-five years...
...This gives a total yearly growth of less than 7,000,000,000 cubic feet...
...what should be done WE should stop forest fires...
...The report is brief, but it contains information of interest to every citizen...
...Under right management our forests will yield over four tiraes as much as now...
...Great damage is done by insects to forests and forest products...
...Preservative treatment will reduce by one-fifth the quantity of timber used in the water or in the ground...
...Woodlands make for the fiber, health, and happiness of each citizen and of the nation...
...By careful logging we should both reduce waste and leave cut-over lands productive...
...The loss in the mill product through seasoning and fitting for use is from one-seventh to one-fourth...
...We take 36 cubic feet per acre for each 12 cubic feet grown...
...Price states concisely the .contents of each chapter in the form of a brief chapter heading...
...We should so adjust taxation that cut-over lands can be held for a second crop...
...And year by year, through careless cutting and fires, we lower the capacity of existing forests to produce their like again, or totally destroy them...
...The young growth destroyed by fire is worth far more than the merchantable timber burned...
...We invite by overtaxation the misuse of our forests...
...We can perpetuate the naval-stores industry...
...For each million acres of forest in public ownership over 4,000,000 are privately owned...
...The original forests covered not less than 850,000,000 acres...
...We use in a normal year 90,000,000 cords of firewood...
...we take 230 cubic feet per capita, while Germany uses 37 cubic feet and France 25 cubic feet...
...The fish which live in forest waters furnish each year $21,-000,000 worth of food, and not less than half as much is furnished by the game which could not exist without the forest...
...We should plant, to protect farms from wind and to make stripped or treeless lands productive, an area larger than that of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia combined...
...One-fourth of the standing timber is left or otherwise lost in logging...
...40,000,-000,000 board feet of lumber, 118,000,000 hewn ties, 1,500,000,000 staves, over 133,000,000 sets of heading, nearly 500,000,000 barrel hoops, 3,000,000 cords of native pulp wood, 165,000,000 cubic feet of round mine timbers, and 1,250,000 cords of wood for distillation...
...We should plant up those lands now treeless which will be most useful under forest...
...what .is produced THE yearly growth of wood in our forests does not average more than 12 cubic feet per acre...
...We should recognize that it costs to grow timber as well as to log and saw it...
...Taken together they tell the story of the work being done to save the trees...
...what forest do OUR industries which subsist wholly or mainly upon wood pay the wages of more than 1,500,000 men and women...
...WHAT THE FOREST SERVICE IS DOING Report of Associate Forester Describes Briefly and Interestingly What Must be Done to Conserve the Forests WHAT the Forest Service has done, what it is now doing and what is necessary to be done in the future to conserve the forests of the nation is admirably set forth in a recent report of former Associate Forester O. w. Price...
...If they are not done, the usefulness of our streams will decrease no less than the usefulness of our forests...
...Except for finishing woods, relatively insignificant in quantity, we must grow our own supply or go without...
Vol. 2 • January 1910 • No. 3
