The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1921-02-24
PLEA FOR FORESTRY POLICY.

L 7--"S = - - - =
| The progress Of civilization has
been marked by an increased per cap
ita consumption Of paper" declares
| the chief of the forest service Of the
United States department. "From
far off Australia, from China, from
Japan and from South America are
coming demands upon the paper MAX
ing resources Of the North American
continent. Large publishing houses
Of England are acquiring pulp fact
ories on this side of the Atlantic.
Confronted by world hungry. DEM
| and for paper the United States will
indeed find a foreign source of supply
a broken reed upon which to lean.
"The paper problem of the United
States is primarily a forest problem" J"
continues che forest service chief. 'eThe
paper industry Of the United States is
now concentrated largely in the conf
ferrous forest belts of the great lakes,
the northern Alleghenies, New York
and New England. Twelve years ago
these forests furnished alNof the raw
materials for the industry. Year by
year, as they have been depleted, the
adjacent timber belts of Canada have
been drawn upon until now full
third of our paper or paper making
materials come from the dominion
The pulp woods left in the northern
and eastern states cannot last, under
! K: = present rate of cutting, more
than fifteen or eighteen years. The
!, spruce forests of Canada will continue
to furnish pulpwood for longer per-
iod, but in their turn are no less ex-
haustible. Meantime our consumpt-
ion of paper is steadily increasing
and now exceeds thirty-five pounds
per year for every man, woman and
child in the country.
"What, then, is the answer? The
New England and middle Atlantic
states contain 31,0OO,OOO acres of
heavily culled o rlogged off lands. The
lake states contain 33,O0O,00O acres of
| logged off forest. Here are $4,000 900
acres of timber growing land within
a stones throw of our paper mills,
land which could supply these mills
several times over with pulp wood if
they were but kept at work growing
it. In the application of forestry to
!! these enormous areas, much of which
are now practically waste land, lies
the only effective solution Of the ma
tional paper problem in the future as
| we'll as the problems arising from
shortages fother essential forest pro-
ducts. There is no situation that en-
phasizes more clearly the need for a
national forestry policy, enlisting the
owner of the land and the public alike
in the restoration of these areas to
producing forests.
"There will be a gap, Of course, be-
tween the end of the old forest crop
and the beginning Of the new To fill
that gap and at the same time dis
tribute our paper industry in much
more logical relation to the resources
of the country as whole, we must
turn to the paper making woods of
the west. The western states contain
easily 400,000,OC0 cords of paper max
ing woods, and southern Alaska con-
tains another 100,000,000 cords. With
scent news print in our principal pa
per markets there is no fundamental
reason why these western resources
should not be drawn upon for ma
tional supply as well as the best re
quirements of their own states.
"While the pulpwood forests of the
west offer an Immediate opportunity to
increase the production Of paper on
American soil and will contribute
largely to our future supply, it is
undesirable from every standpoint
that the paper industry should eat it.
self out of existence in the eastern
and northern states. And there is no
reason why larger paper industry
in our eastern forest regions ohsuld
not be permanent, supported by raw
material produced wholly within our
own borders. All that is required is
the intelligent use Of land for the
production of timber when not suited
by its nature to more valuable pro-
duets.
Regulation of price, control of dis
tribution, restraint upon profteering,
however necessary as temporary ex-
pedients, will not solve the paper pro-
blem. There is but one effective So
lution-increased production of paper