The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1917-01-24

increase. .
The American public, the Forest
Service points out, has no response
bility to protect the security of
timber investments or the outcome
of speculative ventures. The well
fare of many sections, however, de-
pends in no small degree upon lum-
bering as large tax payer, gigan-
tic employer Of labor and capital,
and the chief consumer of agricul-
ture and other industries. The peo-
pie of the whole country, further
more, have a live interest in the eco
nomical use Of present timber sup
plies and in continued forest produc-
ton after logging. Is
The report lays special emphasis
upon the fact that such waste in the
use of our natural forest wealth as
is now taking place will tell newt
ably in the future cost of lumber,
paper, and other products manufac-
tured from timber, as it has told al
ready in many "cut out" states.
Furthermore, under present condi-
tions, little is being done to restock
the forest lands logged for their
virgin timber. The total use of wood
in the United States exceeds by a
good deal the aggregate growth of
its forests; and unless the enor-
nous areas of cutover land, to
which millions Of acres are added
every year, are put to growing new
forests, the Forest Service thinks
that the danger of a nationwide
shortage Of timber and high prices
for all wood products will become
acute. The unstable condition Of
the lumber industry, the report says,
makes it unable to do much toward
Of the forests which it de-
stroyed. ~
The experts in the Forest Service
believe that q more stable kind of
forest ownership, divorced from
to larger degree
than now, must come about before
the ills of the lumber business can
be cured permanently. This kind Of
ownership must not only carry the
present stocks of merchantable tim
Der until the productive industry
needs them, but also provides for
regrowth on cutover lands. The ex-
tension. of public forest ownership,
both state and national, should, in
the Judgment Of the Service, have
a large part in this accomplishment.
According to the Service experts,
there is no surplus Of forest resour-
ces above the country's needs.
There is rather lack of forests
particularly Of growing forests to
take the place of the reservoirs of
virgin timber now being drained.
The difficulty lies, says the Service,
in the wrong kind of forest owner
ship.
A national mistake, the report
goes on to say, was made in such
rapid and wholesale passing of title
to timberlands in the public domain,
beyond all immediate needs for To-
cal or industrial development. Pri-
vate ownership, hard pressed to carry
these staggering quantities of timber
during the long periods which must
necessarily elapse before they can
be converted into lumber, is now
sacrificing them in part by Wasteful
use because of its own financial eM-
gencies. The carrying of this fu-
ture resource, the Forest Service de-
clares,i should have been public
rather than a private function. The
report urges that this situation be
faced frankly, and the obvious reme-
DIV applied, that of taking part of
the Western tinlberlands. 4 ~.
Much can be accomplished also,
the report says, by public and prl-
vate cooperation in fire protection
and in securing methods of taxation
better adapted to timberlands; and,
to insure the regrowth of logged-off
forests, reasonable public regulation
of the handling of private lands will
unquestionably find a place IN work
ing out the problem. !. -
Finally, the Forest Service dis
agrees radically with the idea now
mooted in many quarters that forest
should be sought
permitting industrial combi-
nations for the regulation of lumber
production or control of lumber
prices. 1t. regards such Developments
as involving dangers to the public
through restraint Of trade
so serious as to Offset any possible
to the public from such
forms of conservation as they might
foster. The Service believes, in
fact, that such measures as joint
control of lumber output by agree
ment would be Ineffective in holding
back the pressure to cut timber and
in overcoming the other weaknesses
which cause overproduction. Better
ment in the industry, the Service
holds, must come largely through
strengthening individual operators
or owners, and particularly through
a more stable owership of forest
lands, in which the public partlcl-
pates to much larger degree than
now.
The Forest Service advocates such
forms of cooperation as trade asso-
Citations and selling agencies, safe
~..lal ~, ,,,,b1io c,1norvicion and