Excerpt from Some Public and Economic Aspects of the Lumber Industry, Vol. 1: Studies of the Lumber Industry

These resources have been put to use through an industry which in energy, rapid development, and mechanical efficiency has cut stripped that of any other country. The forests of other nations, like Russia, are comparable in extent, but have never attained a like economic value because no comparable industries have grown up to use them.

The importance of our forests and forest industries gave general support to a national policy of conservation a few years ago when it was realized that the timber supply was being rapidly used up. Hitherto this policy has dealt directly with but a portion of the forest lands in public ownership. The much vaster areas privately owned it has reached only through educational work in forestry and the impetus given to the protection of timberlands from fire. It has touched conditions in the forest-using industries only through research in their methods and processes. There has been, however, an unquestioned response to the conservation movement by the forest industries in better protection of timberlands and closer use of their raw material.

The last six or seven years have brought better knowledge of the timber resources of the United States, better information about their renewal, better insight into the strength and weakness of the forest using industries. These years have shown particularly how forest conservation is affected by economic conditions in the manufactures whose raw material is wood. Demoralized lumber markets affect the value of timber, the stability of its ownership, the degree to which it is wasted in exploitation, and the possibility of carrying out any far-sighted plan of forest renewal. The character of timber owner ship, on the other hand, reacts upon lumber production; hence upon the manufacturer, distributor, and consumer. The interests of the public, locally and nationally, are touched at many of these points.

These industrial conditions, with their reaction upon the forests, have raised a question as to whether the public forest policy of the United States goes far enough. Particularly does better understand ing of the conditions in the timber-using industries and their effect upon forestry and forest use seem desirable.

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