White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-12-24
OF Interest To Farmers
Best Use of Soil Is
Public Forest Policy

Best Use of Soil Is
Public Forest Policy
The best use of the soil must be the
common goal of long time public pol
icies in forestry agriculture, and pub
Hollands utilization, said r. Y. Stuart,
chief forester, in the annual report
for the fiscal year 1881, Of the United
States forest service, just made public
by Regional Forester C.. j. Buck, Port
land, Ore.
LACK Of economic balances and lack
Of stability conspicuously characterize
the relationships between forest use
and forest resource" Major Stuart said
1.-THE causes are deep-seated, and the
resulting maladjustment is chronic, not
temporary. In this respect, 1t bears a
close resemblance to the naladjust-
ments that afflict agriculture. Indeed
the forest problem and the agricul
tural problem are in many ways inter-
related Both call for foresighted plan
ming and wisely directed public and
private effort to adjust production to
needs and to bring about the utiliza-
ton of our vast land resources along
lines that will contribute most to our
permanent national welfare"
The unWisdom of charging further
the area of cultivated land through the
clearing of forest lands that have low
value for agriculture is now realized
according to the forester's report 1t
is becoming widely recognized that a
great deal of land has been mistaken
| ly cleared, and that it is of great pub
lie Importance to grow forest crops as
a means of utilizing lands that agri-
culture will not employ.
Under the national forest program
says the forester's report, the lumber
industry has resources for permanent
production instead of resources when
are continually vanishing. The indus
try has based it's plans on liquidating
resources and now must make grad
ual readjustment of the financial basis
of the industries, as well as of manL-
featuring and sales policies, to a long
time program. The only adequate and
final cure is production based on sound
land USE
'The lumber industry" the report
says, "has always been essentially I'M
stable, in the sense that as an exploit
ative industry it has been shifting.
Its individual establishments have been
temporary, moving from one location
to another as new stumpage supplies
became necessary, while the industry
as whole has been moving it's center
from one great forest region to another
as regional depletion of the virgin
timber stands dictated 1t can shift
no farther.
"Now the lumber industry is unstable
for another reason. In an effort to
liquidate it's Pacific Coast holdings at
the favorable prices which it had
built up, it's sawmill capacity has been
overdeveloped. There is created the
dual problem of reducing sawmill ca
pacitiy and simultaneously revising
timber holding policies from liquid
ating to sustained-yi yield basis
In several western states, according
to the report, cutover lands are be-
coming tax delinquent on an alarming
scale. Considering all the difficulties
and uncertainties involved in substitute
ing forest management for forest dis
posal, state policies that will insure
reasonably stabilized ownership of
timberlands must evolve gradually The
problem would be much greater had
not the federal national forest policy
provided stable form of ownership
for much of the forest land in the
west.
while the maintenance and in some
cases the extension of the national
forest system have hearty approval
practically throughout the west," says
the report, from time to time there
are proposals that threaten the integ-
rity of the system. under the guise of
advocacy of federal land donation
from the national forests, for the ben
eft of some special local public need
or state interest. Several such pro-
posals have been advanced recently,
and have had strong backing If it
became customary to grant to the
western states portions of the national
forests for one local need or another
movements to obtain similar grants
would multiply until the whole system
would become riddled and finally
would disintegrate, with incalculable
injury to the west and the nation"