Historic, archived document
Do not assume content reflects current scientific knowledge, policies, or practices.
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United States Department of Agriculture
\ FOREST SERVICE
CENTRAL STATES FOREST EXPERIMENT STATION
ADORES* REPLY TO DIRECTOR
AND REPEAT©- CS
INP0K.1ATI0N
General December 5,
aO W. lOth AVENOF
t03 I8TH AVENUE. COLUMBUS, OHIO
194:1
Dear, Sirj
At various times during the past tivo yearsy I have prepared papers or addresses for meetings, conferences, etc* Some people have requested that these things be given wider distribution; therefore, this compilation?
There is some duplication in thought among the papers, but they are each designed to present thoughts from different points of view to different audiences.
I would be happy to have your comments on;
(1) The matters presented
(2) The desirability of an occasional
mimeographed release of this kind.
Sincerely yours.
Enclosure
J. ALFRED HALL, Director
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THE JOB OF FORESTRY RESEARCH Novomber B6, 1940
IN THE CSSTRAL STATES l/
Changing a Poor Forest to a Good One
If a farmer had a field of corn choked with weeds, then went in and cut the corn, his harvest would be of weeds. If he had a dairy herd from which he continued to sell all the good calves and brood from scrJi^bs, he would wind up with a herd of scrubs. That about describes the pro- cesses that have been applied to most forests in the Central States. Noy\,'' we have a very poor forest of poor species and defective trees. The process by which it got that v:ay is called ’’overcutting” ; that is, men have for years cut more wood than \ms growing. At the sfune time they cut tho best kinds, so the poorest kinds had room and light to do most of the grovj-ing and now occupy "too much of tho ground.
Also, fire has run uncontrolled for years. It killed out those species that couldn’t stand fire, and those that could occupied the ground. Trees loft alive wore damaged by having fire scars in their bases, and consequently, rotten spots.
Cattle eat hardirood foliage and keep down young grovrth, tho nemt crop of trees. So, instead of a good procession from seedlings on up to mature trees we have nothing but old, faulty trees on much land.
V\[0 want a forest of good species, healthy grov/ing trees, with ages all tho way from young to old trees ready to cut. The questj.on is: How can w’o transfona what we have into what wo want, and do the job at tho lowest possible cost?
If that last stipulation vrere not important, the task would be much simpler, but it is very iiaportant.
Wo know that our tools 'will probably be tho saw and axo, combmied with a great deal of patience. If vrc could just wait a few hundred years. Nature vrould doubtless do tho job for us, but wo need v/ood and people need jobs. The land must quit loafing and get to work. So wo shall cut tlie material that is now on tho ground, but cut in such a way as to move toward the kind of forest vro desire. Everything iw: do must bo guided by that motivo--to im^provo the forest.
Hero are some of the things vfc shall need to know;
(1) Vihat kinds of trees will do best on this ground?
(2) How many ought there to bo to obtain the best grow'th? ^
(3) Since some trees do better in shade than others, how can vra manipulate so as to got some shade and some fairly open co’vor?
(4) Vuiat shall we do to discourage the grow'th of useless species of trees?
(5) How can Yfc use the poor stuff now there so as to help pay the cost of improvement?
(C) What 17111 an acre of this land grow per year after V'TC get a full stand of trees growing?
1/ Distributed to Forest Supervisors of Region 9, b. S. Forest Service.
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If Vv'-9 knev/ all the answers noY\r, could begin doing a lot of work aimed at making these existing forests more productive. But, we shall learn by doing, because only by actually performing operations on the forest can Y/e find out what the results will be. By cutting in various ways, observing through the years hoY\r tho remaining trees behave, by measuring the growth, and not being in too big a hurry to just do some- thing, v/e can find out hor; to make these hills produce as much wealth as they ought to produce.
The Right Kind of Trees in the Right Place
Generally research is intended to make a product cheaper or better or both and, therefore, to help satisfy human needs to a greater degree.
In forestry the product is wood; in the Central States, mostly hardwood.
To grow that vrood more cheaply we must find out how to get the most trees of good kinds to grovj- on forest land. In short, every acre must produce every foot of good lumber that it can produce.
Now, land is highly variable and trees are just like all other crops. They grow best on good land and certain species do better in certain kinds of loc.ations. It is the job of research to find out vdiere cornm.6rcial species grovj- best. Since we have to deal with over 40 ld.nds of trees that yield commercial lumber, and since our lands vary all the v/ay from old fields to virgin forests, and from rich wot bottoms to dry, hot, sandy side hills, the task is a complex one.
Just growing trees is not enough. They must produce good lumber.
Short, crooked, knotty trees look all right from, a distance and keep the hills green, but they cannot be cut into lumber so anybody can make a profit. ■ If the job of getting the right trees in the right place is done properly, wo get the .best kind of growth and tho best kind of lumber.
The forests we have left in the Central States are not much like the original ones. The best kinds of trees have been cut over and over so that those left are too often of poor species, not very useful. First wo must find out what kinds can be grown successfully, and then how to get them established.
How Does Forestry Pay?
As a general social proposition, most of us are pretty well con- vinced that forestry, its products, the labor opportunities afforded, and recreational and watershed values obtained, all add up to a heavy profit. However, most forestry is and probably/ will continue to be practiced on privately owned land. If the public is to derive all the above values, private ownership and forestry must be made attractive to the individual. In short, ovmership and operation of privately ovmed for- est land must return a profit.
We must know, then, the costs and returns of forestry in order to do two things: (l) Determine and encourage those practices that are profit- able; and (2) provide proper bases for determining the relationships between Government and private ownership of forest land.
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The determination of the coots of forestry involves:
(1) Land values.
(2) Groivth and yield of tiiabsr and its products.
(3) Credit mechanisms and their application to forest land.
(4) Harvesting and milling costs.
(5) Transportation and marketing costs.
The deberiainat ion of the returns of forestry involve;
(1) Returns to ownership by understanding:
(a) Markets and their trends
(b) New conversion and utilisation processes.
(c) Improved marketing mechanisms.
(d) Values in home consumption.
(e) Returns from marketing owner’s labor.
(2) Returns to society in:
(a) Labor and capital involved in harvesting, m.anufacture
marketing.
(b) Increased tax base in real property and income.
(c) Rocreational and other estiietic values.
(d) Watershed control.
All these things and more combine to make up the Econorsics of Private Forestry. They are all involved in the economics of Tnblic Forestry but there must be added then the problem of integrating R;blic Ownership with the maintenance of local governments. Similarly, the opera- tion of publicly ov/ned forests in the public interest involves the inte- gration of such forests with private land in building industries of permanence and maintenance of populations.
These things all require continuous investigations in various economic fields in order that businesses, private and public, may operate intelli- gently and in the public interest.
Planting Fores t s
Much of the forester's job in the Central States consists in getting forests reestablished on abandoned fam lands. These lands, once productive, have been robbed, eroded, and left idle. Not only are they not producing; many of them are threats to good bottom land. Planning dictates their use as forests.
The species of trees that constituted the virgin forest will no longer grow on the depleted soil. There is no litter or porous soil to take in water to feed the heavy water requirements of hardwoods. Planting, there- fore, to reestablish forest cover and start rebuilding soil, rsquires the use of conifers or shrubby species that will grow. Wha.t to plant on the widely varying sites is a m.ajor question ivhich can be solved only by experi- mentation.
Havinf^ determined vfhat species will grow and do v\rell, we must fsaow vThen and how to plant them. Also, we must know how to gro'w seedlings in the nursery that will survive and grow in the open field. Sometimes we shall have to fertilize or improve a planting site by other means in order to obtain survival of the trees we plant , Survival alone is the measure of success. The costs, at best, are heavy, so increased survival means less necessity for replanting and money saved.
Finally, we shall have to study our plantations of conifers to see how they can be eventually transfonried to hardv/ood stands either by natural seeding or by underplanting. We shall have to be able to recognize the tiiTie when a site is again capable of grov\;lng hardwoods.
ijToyr^ and Yield
The virgin forest was valuable for the material it had standing in it. The managed forest is valuable for the amount of material that can be harvested on the average every year for all time to come. Its productive capacity is, therefore, measured by the amount of wood it grows per acre per year. That is also the amount we can harvest per year without cutting into our growing stock, after the forest has finally reached the stage
of m aximum growth.
For a particular kind of land and a particular kind of forest, what is that growi-th capacity? For most of the land in the Central states, we simply do not know. Hence, we do not Itiow the real basis for sustained yield management, nor do we know the potentialities for profit in growing trees.
In order to calculate the business chances in for>e-sti‘y we must know what volumes of wood will be produced witliin specified periods of time from lands of varying quality. These facts are almost entirely lacking.
In order to buy and sell logs and trees intelligently, we must knov/ the amount of lumber that can be cut from trees and logs of many sizes and many species. These gaps in our knowledge arc very incorapletely filled.
Forests and Water
Dry spells seem to affect our streams iriore than they used to. Lots of springs our fathers knev/ have long since stopped flowing. We have to drill deeper for water and it does not rise as high in the well as it did years ago. Why? Part of the answer lies in the fact that we have cut and burned most of our forest, plow^ed and allowed to vwish away much top soil from land that should never have been cleared.
’%ter is one of the products of the forest. The deep litter and porous soil of the hardvi/ood forest takes the mter into the ground where it can soak away to lower levels, feed springs, maintain stream flow, and keep wa ter in the wells.
'^foter that goes into the ground does not cause disastrous floodcS.
Y'^e ought to be able to lower flood peaks and have moro useful water vduriiig dry spells by taking proper measures in managing land. Kov; much are those effects? Ho'i/v much can we be sure of affecting floods or restoring ground water levels by getting good forests back on the land that ought to carry them? If these public benefits do come from forests, hovi large are they
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and hoY.,' far ought Governnent to go in executing forestry programs in order to realize them? VJhat kinds of forest cover are most effective in reducing run-off? On our many kinds of soils, what treatments and covei's are most effective in preventing erosion?
These are questions that need to be answered to shoYV hov: forestry can aid in solving the water problems of the Midvrest.
Forests and Winds
Gil the Great Plains men are learning that narroY/ belts of trees acres the direction of the prevailing vfinds can go far in lessening the terrible effects of those hot, dry Ymnds of summer. Crops groY/ better in the lee of sheltering groves because the plants eY^aporate less xmter in a quiet atmos- phere than in a high Y/ind, and Y/ater evaporates less rapidly from the soil surface .
Can similar results of value be obtained in the Corn Belt? True, there are almost never crop failures, but many crops are shorter becavise of hot, dry winds. CoYild restoration of som.e of the formerly abundant woods, or the planting of new ones help to make crops more certain, aiid, incident- ally, a more pleasant land in Yvhich to direll?
Many farmers of the Corn Belt are planting nsY/' and bettver Y/indbreaks of trees to break YYinter's cold blasts. Ought there not be experimentation on better species adapted to the Y;indbreak job?
^VHaT CAN BE DOITE /
TO ENCOERAGE ESE OF OHIO-GROY^I EARDY/OODS ^
It is interesting; to note a shift in emphasis in popular thought from "conservation of hardwood" to "uvse of hardwood." Yet, the tvvo terms are the same. Conservation involves wise utilization, and w^e are now in the position of realizing that the greatest single obstacle to good forestry- in Ohio is the lack of utilization of the material we are grovmng.
Yfe knov\r our forests are understocked, and that a high percentage of our standing wood is defective. We know that repeated culling has brought about a preponderance of species of comparatively low value. In order to get back into production of the kind of wood that brings good prices, much of the material now standing must be harvested; but, markets for such material are lacking, returns are low, and stimipage values often negative. Stumpage returns are not high from cross -ties, mine props, car blocking, and fuel wood. Yet those are the products to which the majority of the material now standing in Ohio forests is best adapted. This is in spite of the fact that, potentially, Ohio ranks among the leaders in hardwood lumber production. Perhaps it mil be well to exam.ine the hardVwWod market, the trend of hardwood str-ampage prices, and see what has happened to Ohio in relation to these trends.
The earliest figures on hardwood production are in 1869. Figures at this early date are not entirely reliable, but they indica.te that Ohio was at that time producing 11 percent of the total hardwood I’omber cut, or 488,000,000 board feet. A good measure of utilization is per capita hardv/ood consumption. In 1869, this nation consumed 94 board*, feet of hard- wood per capita per annum. By 1899, thirty years later, Ohio reached its peak and produced 951,000,000 board feet of hardwood, or 10.7 percent of the total. By this tine, per capita consumption of hardwood had reached 116 board feet oer capita per annum. Per capita consumption reached a peak in 1906, at 126 board feet. Eov/ever, by this time Ohio had long since passed its peak of hardwood production, and was now down to 435,000,000 board feet per annum.
Per capita oonsuniption of hardv/ood trends increasingly dowaward from 1906. The bi ggest break came betYfeen 1906 and 1913, during vdiich years consumption dropped from 126 board feet to 97 board feet. This period coincides Txith the biggest drop in total lumber consumption. Various explana tions have been given for this phenomena; there appear to be two principal factors involved. First, the period coincides *with the comple-bion o.f the major portion of farm construction in the Enited States. Sacond, there began a period of centralization of population in urban districts, wdiere frame construction Ymis not permissible. Whatever the explanation, hardvrood consumption continued to decline up to 1929, in spite o.f increasing prosperity in the country. -By 1929 consumption stood at 51 board feat per capita per annum. It may be considered that the last ten years Wave been abnormal. Certainly lumber consumption hr.s been at a lovf ebb. During these years any time there has been an upturn in the residence construction curve, the curve for lumbar consumption has followed it closely. During the past fev;- years, hardv<rood lumber consumption has averaged in the neigh- borhood of 20 board feet per capita per annum.
jy*" Paper read by J. Alfred Hall before the Ohio Forestry Association,
Fob nAary 1, 1940.
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Ohio’s production of hardwood lumber has progressively decreased.
From 433,000,000 in 1906, production became fairly well stabilised at in the neighborhood of 185,000,000 or 190,000,000 up to 1929. In 1932 it reached an all-time low at 32,000,000. Figures for 1934, the last avail- able, show a production of 82,000,000 board feet of lumber. It will be understood that these figures are exclusive of cross-ties and other materials cut from hardwood land.
From the above fi^pares, the follovmng conclusions maj?- be dravm:
Ohio had passed its peak in lumber production before the peak of hardvrood consumption had been reached. l%ile hardYvood consumption remained almost static from 1919 to 1929, Ohio’s production dropped from 280,000,000 feet to 175,000,000 feet.
A brief anal.ysis of hardvj’ood stumpage prices during the past genera- tion or two might v/ell give some relationship that would indicate whether or not hardwood production in Ohio was keeping pace with hardvj-ood market trends. No one can predict in advance the trend of stumpage prices.
Hov/ever, the record of past stum.page prices, and of their relative stability, as compared with prices of other basic ra’w materials , is the best indication of the relative position of future stumpage prices. From such an analysis we may be able to draw' some conclusions as to whether future forestry in Ohio may pay its Yifay. It is perfectly true that, throughout the country at large, there is no such thing as a true stumpage market. Nor will there ever be a true stumpage market as long as large bodies of distressed virgin timber remain on the market. However, in the Fast, in the South, and in the Central States, distance from market of virgin timber lias had no little effect in determining standard stumpage values. In these regions, then, stumpage prices may be considered to indicate rs.ther well the stable trend of values.
Stumpage prices of hardwoods ad, justed to the varying value of the dollar sliQ-w the following from 1900 to 1934 1 In 1900, hardvroods were selling at an adjusted value of about |1.65 per thousand. Th.e trend has been generally upivard until in 1933 they reached a va.lue of -^5.34 per thousand. There have been minor variations in the curve, but the general upward trend is pronounced. By contrast, the adjusted price of stui,ipage in softwoods has increased from. ^^.95 in 1900 to only $2.43 in 1934. A study of these figures clearly indicates that, although actual average stumpage prices in the country as a whole have declined since the late 1920’ s, the real price in term.s of the purchasing poxver of the dollar has not only been maintained, but has showni a disti:act increase for the p8 riod 1920 to 1934.
So ranch for the nation-vride picture. Now let us look for a moment at the picture in relationship to the price of stumpage in the Central Region, from 1900 to 1934. In 1900, the adjusted price of stumpage for hardwoods was t>5.29 per thousa,nd. The variation has been broader than in the over-all price figures. An all-time loiv was reached in 1918, at ^^1.44 per thousand. An all-time high was reached in 1923, at .'17.04 per thousand.
In 1934 the price stood at |4.69, or sixty cents less than in 1900. In short, in the face of a generaland continued regular rise in hardwood stumpage prices, there has been an actual avei'age decrease in hardv/ood stumpage prices in the Central Region.
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By contrast, let us consider hardwood stuinpago prices in the Southern Region from 1900 to 1954. Actually, the earliest quoted values appear in 1903, when the hardwood stumpage price -V'Jb.s §1.15 per thousand.
The upward trend in this region lias been more marked than the general trend throughout the country. The price in 1934 was ••.:;4:.80.
The South is constantly becoming a more important source of hardwood limber and other hardwood forest products, in spite of the fact that, in general, southern hardwoods are not of equal quality to those normally produced in the Central Region. In 1900, 18 percent of the ash lum^ber produced in the United States cams from the Southern Region. In 1933, the South furnished 56 percent of the total quantity of ash lumber. The percent of hickory lumber produced in the South increased from 10 percent in 1900 to 52 percent in 1933, v\rhile that of oak increased from 12 to 52 percent.
There are a few other significant things that ought to go into the record. Stumpage prices did not go back to the piB-war level during the depression years. They have been maintained at levels appreciably higher than the all-commodity index since 1921. Log prices did not go as high during the years of inflation, nor as lov7 during the years of the depression, as did the average price of farm products. Log prices on the average did not descent to the pre-war level during the depression, while the average price of all farm, products \ms below the 1910 to 1914 average in 1931 to 1934. It is also interesting to note that hardvrood log prices have been maintained by and large at higher prices since 1920 than have softwood log prices, j/
Vfe may draw the following conclusions from the quoted figures:
(1) There is a large and continuing hardwood limber market in the United States. It is smaller than in former years, but it is still a good market.
(2) Stimpage prices and log prices indicate that the Central Region is no longer obtaining a proportionate share of that market. The major portion of the market has moved to the South* (3) General stumpage figures indicate that the public demand for good quality hardwood continues. This is indicated by the fact that stumpage and limber prices have shoim con- sistent upward trends during the past forty years. L'e may logically ask the Question, therefore, ’’If there is a market for hardwood ma-terials, why are we unable to dispose of the hardwoods now being produced on Ohio land?”
The uses to which hardwoods a.re put are widely different from* those to which the softwoods are adapted. Hardwood uses depend upon strength' properties, beauty of grain, adaptadoility to high finish, and certain other characteristics that render them specialty products. For' example, hickory is not much used as a construction materia.1, but finds its widest useful- ness in those places where its properties of high strength, stiffness, hardness and shock-resistance make it desirable. It is therefore used for handles, shafts, poles, spokes, rims, and in gymnasium apparatus and similar places. Ash has similar uses, but is also adapted to agricultural impleiaents and various other places where shock-resistance and stiffness are desirable properties. Black locust, the heaviest and hardest of our native woods, is low in shrinkage and very durable. However, it has very small use in construction, and finds its principal utilization as insulator pins, tree nails, imgon hubs, or in the more lowly uses of fence posts, ly^These data are taken from Technical Bulletin No. 623, July 1933, by
Henry B. Steer, Stumpage Prices of Privately Owned Timber in the U. ”
mine timbers and poles. Our oaks, the white oaks especially, are heavy, hard, stiff and strong. They find their usefulness in flooring, in interior trim., in furniture manufacturing, implements, cooperage, piling, cross-ties, and timber. Actually, the only hardwood that has found any wide useage as a structural raaterial has been yellow poplar. It has been abmost entirely displaced in this field, however, by the softwoods, and poplar now finds most usefulness in interior finish, siding, furniture, and other products that are to be painted and enameled. It is also widely used in the manufacture of veneer, panels, and the lov\rer grades for boxes and crates. Almost without exception, the uses of hardwood thus far have demanded clear material, free from loiots, free from defect; in general, high-grade material in contra-distinction to many uses that have been found for low-gmade softwoods. Inferior liardwoods not only do not demand good stumpage prices for lumber conversion, but in general are not salable at all except for uses that command very low, if any, stumpage values.
The answer, then, to the trend of hardv/ood stumpage prices in the central vjest, and perhaps the answer to the fact that consiunption of central hardwoods is at a low ebb, may be found in the fact that Ohio lands, as Yfell as other central region lands, are no longer stocked with material suited for those uses upon which the continued market for hardvraods has been based.
In short, where the oak market is for clear lumber, free from rot, free from knots, v/e know that our o.ak stands are now so defective that it is almost impossible to find a tree that cuts out even a small proportion of the select grades. Grade analysis in general for hardwood production in the Central States shows a steady drop in quality during the last tvj-erity- five years. The furniture industry, finding no material within easy reach of existing plants, has continued to go into the South and import material in order to continue operation. The hardiTOod industry suffered a heavy blov/ when the automobile industry shifted from hardvrood bodies to all-steel bodies. This had nothing to do with the availability of hardwod; it was simply a case of an industry developing to the place where one materic.l became more suitable for its use than another. However, it must be a^imitted that the hardwood industry in general has not kept pace with industrial developments in other fields. Vi/here the steel industry has continued to adapt its material to uses and fabricate shapes and sizes to the order of the assembler of implements or tools, it has been increasingly difficult to obtain prefabricated hardwood materials for special uses in assembling.
For example, a case recently came to light in which a refrigerator manu- facturer had been sv\ringing his motor and compressor unit on a hardwood panel near the bottom of his refrigerator. Pie found it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get a h.ardiTood premanufactured panel, bored and fitted to a template so that ho could buy it recidy to install. However, when he went to the steel manufacturer, he found it easy to get a stool shape bored and stamped. All he had to do v/as to install it. The point is that, although hardwoods can be manufactured to the requ ireraonts of the assembly plant, they have not been so manufactured, and much market has been lost to com.peting materials.
Among our oaks the principal volum-e consumption in former years v\ras undoubtedly in the form of flooring and interior trim. In recent years it is perfectly evident that fashion has dictated int-erior trim in other than hardwood finish. Most houses these days have softwood trka, and paint or enamel finish. This has undoubtedly played a large part in
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the decrease in oak consumption. There was a certain recovery in oak with the return of liquor and the demand for tight cooperage. This is a continuing demand. In the slack cooperage market, elm still occupies an important field. In the fiel.d of boxes o.nd crates there have been large inroads by fiber-board boxes, which have continually displaced large volumes of hardwood and softwood formerly used in this field. The maple market probably continues to absorb more clear mPwple in the form of floorings than in any other form, although lo.rge volumes also go into furniture as is the case with oak. The furniture field undoubtedly is still an oxcellent market for hardwood.
To sma it all up, the fact is that there is a continuing fair market for hardwood luraber, but this market demands qualities that are not no'w being produced in the central hardwood region. Yet, tvO must sell the hardwood that we have on the ground before y\ro can begin to grow the qualities demanded by the market. Our central question, thon, is hov; to promote the utilization of the material available so that wo can get back into the production of material that will command a real price on the s tump age ma r ke t .
There are a few trends of favorable nature that ought to be discussed. One of the most interesting ones is the trend in certain sec- tions tov/ard the use of hardwood in local or farm construction. I have recently seen some excellent barns constructed in Indiana from local grovrn hardwood lumber. When properly cut and properly seasoned, and properly used, these m.ato rials can be constructed j.nto serviceable barns. One fanner of m.y acquaintance insists that in his lumber bill for the construction of an average-sized dairy barn on his placo he sa^^ed just IllOO.OO in lumber cost alone. As a matter of fact, he grew the lumber on his ovm place. Requirements of lumber for fa.rm construction are less rigid than those for the furniture, interior trim, or other specialty markets. The local producer starts with an advantage of somewhere in the neighborhood of ^15.00 a thousand in transportation cost assessed against softi/rood brought in from the West Coast. In Indiana, count3^ agents in certain districts are encouraging use of locally sawed luiaber in such farm and local construction. It would appear that a similar procedure in Ohio might bring some results.
There is another important trend in the hardvrood indust r;y" that offer some hope in utilization of comparatively loiv-grade laaterial. I refer to the so-called "dimension stock industry." All shapes and sizes cut from various species of hardwood are widely used in furiiiture manufacture, and in various other places where large sizes are not required. There has been an increasing tendency among manufacturers in recent years to avoid, if possible, the operation of a saYmdll or a cut-up plant for the production of the stock item used in assembling. Instead, they have preferred to buy materials cut to approximate size and shape. In their oivn plant, they finish the shape to the required size and form, and incorporate it in the article for vfnich they are prepared to comiplete the manufacture. This has led to the establishment of cut-up plants in various localities that buy rough lumber, season it, and cut it to small dim.Gnsions suitable for delivery to assembly manufa-cturers . In some cases it has already?- become apparent that such a procedure offers opportunities for the utilization of
comparatively defective logs that have hitherto been considered not worth the cost of cutting into lumber. Instead of discarding such material, it now becomes possible to cut between the knots and betv/eeu the rotten spots, and recover the cl0<ar material that is of sufficient quality and sufficient size to manufacture the small -dime ns ion pieces used by the furniture manu- facturers. As a matter of fact, there is also a considerable industry in the manufacture of hardwood flooring in random lengths, which is also cut from similar defective miaterial. This market is a rapidly expanding one, and offers real opportunity in utilization of low-grade trees. It is not going to bring about miraculous stumpage prices for fire-scarred and decayed meter ia]., but it will make possible the realization of at least the cost of removal of the material from the ground.
There have recently been developed also new techniques in the utiliza- tion of small pieces of hardwood cut from larger defective boards. That offers some promise in the building field, bo far, hardwoods have offered little competition with softwoods in the field of siding or weatherboarding, drop-'Siding, or oven in the field of the formation of inside ’walls. The only exception has been in cases where somiebody vwantod to spend a good deal of money in getting a hardwood po.noled interior. These have been expensive because large pieces of clear material ’were required. Recent developments have shovra tlie possibility of combining SLiall pieces of hardwood, glued together in panels that fit in bet’ween the studs, a?id forming a comparatively inexpensive hardwood paneled interior. Similar developments are taking place in the possible utilization of smull pieces of hardwood in the foma- tion of exterior walls.
There is one thing in comiaon betu'-een all these processes: They require comparative l.y loxv-grade logs, but they do require cut-up plants and dry-kiln equipment of high standards. This brings us to the general problem of the lack of well-developed harvesting and marketing facilities for our hardvrood material in Ohio. In general, we deal mostly with very small and very inefficient m.ills that are equipped only for the production of rough and unseasoned, lumber, buch material, poorly graded, poorly mLanufactured, and of general poor quality throughout, can command only coiaparatively low prices in the market. 'The hardwood that finds its way into the retail lumber yard as kiln-dried and we 11 -manufactured material commands very high prices. Also, comparatively little of it nov; comes from the central hardwood region. The facilities required for the mam.ifacture of such material are not aA^ail- able to the small sawmill operator. If, however, numerous small sawmill operators could be combined into cooperative arrangements with a central cut-up plant equipped with proper kiln-drying facilities, it seems entirely possible that those new markets for diiaension stock mig]it bo supplied from material now capable of being harvested within the confines of Ohio. It does not seem probable that threse demands v\rill be met from material nov'T being harvested and marketed in the haphazard way obtaining. Tm' low prices for such materials as mine timbers, cross-ties, car blocking and the like can only be replaced by the potential high prices obtainable for clear sowm material properly manufactured and properly kiln-dried, if there is an extensive revision of haphazard marketing arrangements. As long as tlie present -marketing and manufacturing arrangements contiuu^, farmers will continue block sales of hard'vTood timber. Such sales load to exploitive cutting and abuse in manufacture, and to continued degradation of the market.
11
There are one or two other hopeful features in present technical developments that ought to be described. In the first place, hardwoods in the middle ivest have not enjoyed very muich demand in pulp manufacture. The reason has been principally the very large supplies of coniferous woods available, and the better s,daptability of coniferous woods to those pulping processes most widely used. I may say confidently that pulping processes are in process of development that are much less critical of wood qualities than have been the older processes. Tfnether or not they will bring about expensive conversion of hardwoods into pulp I cannot say. It would seem, however, that there is hope of more extensive utilization of low-grade hardwood materials than has been the case in the past. If this comes about, the sort of material that we now have on Ohio lands would be available for pulp use. It would not command high stumpage values, but it could be removed from the ground at perhaps an even break between cost and return. If we could even accomiplish this, we would have made a long stride toward good forest practice in Ohio.
There is another potential development in the offing that offers some promise. I refer to a process, quite different from the old steam bending processes, th-at makes wood a material capable of being shaped into almost any desirable form, without sacrificing its bee,uty of grain and structure that has made it a very desirable material for furniture. Ouch a development vrould undoubtedly insure vrood for a long tim.e to come pre- eminence in the furniture field*
In the case of the utilization of v/ood waste, recent developments have shorn it possible to produce an excellent plastic by hydrolysis of such waste. This plastic, in povrder form, ready for molding, costs only about one-fifth the price of normal phenol-formaldehyde resins or analagous products. The product has the disadvantage of being made only in denso black form. Hovv’-ever, its strength values, resistance to moisture, and fire-proof qualities indicate a wide field of usefulness. Obviously, only wood vjaste is suitable for manufacture in such a product. It is entirely possible that low-grade materials, such as can be harvested from much of our land, will also find their widest usefulness in conversion into som.e such product* To sum up, we need to encourage better manufacture and better marketing of the material that we now produce. Second, we need to encourage the development of dimens ion- stock manufacture within our State in order to utilize the clear wood that can be obtained between the knots and rotten places within our trunks. In the third place, we need to encourage the development of the use of local-grov/n lum.ber for local and farm construction needs. In general, if we are to regain cur former position as an important producer of hardwoods, we must convert the present decadent and inferior stands into stands of clear, sound trees. This can only be done by removing, sometimes at a loss, the defective imaterial now encumbering the ground. It is idle to speculate on the possibility^ of large returns from such material. The hardwood market as it now exists demands laostly clear material, soundly manufactured, and soundly m^arketed. Ohio has not been keeping up with the procession in that field. In spite of the natural productivity of its forest lands, it has allo7/ed them to become enc^ombered vriLth inferior material for which there is no real present market that will give good stumpage returns. It will take time, perhaps the investment of considerable money, and a lot of patience before Ohio becomes again a major producer of high-grade liardv/ood lumber.
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AN EFFECTIVE FORESTRY PROGPAH FOR OHIO ll
An effective forestry program for Ohio must be a program that looks far into the future. It must bo a program fitted to the land, to the needs of the times insofar as we can foresee them, and to the people vdio rrill come after us. At the same time it must be so designed that it will not place an intolerable burden of investment upon those who now pp.y taxes and, if possible, should operate in some measure so as to relieve unemploy- ment and distress. Therefore, tonight I am not going to dxvell upon the happenings of the past, but shall attempt to project cur thoughts into the future, to see what social benefits and rewards we m.ay expect from the constructive forestry program that is now submitted to the people of the State of Ohio. The past is of value only insofar as we can learn to avoid its errors, and to profit by its successes.
I suppose no evil is always unmixed with blessings. It may bo diffi- cult at this close range for us to recognize any benefit that may have flowed from the past t-en p'ears of economic stress. Hov/ever, I believe no one will deny that this disastrous experience has taught us many things that wo sadly needed to know, has taught us to question many of the beliefs that W0 accepted in the past. It has taught us to view the future more as a time of settled economy in w'hich roen can plan to live steady and thrifty- live s, than a time in which ra.pid development, wdld speculatio'n, and unheard of profits m.ay again arise. Vfe have learned amon;" other things that our land is sickj -^A'-e have learned that even in the great and rich Sta'be of Ohio nearly 25 percent cf the land area is producing ver;g little and in large parts nothing of any social value. We have learned that in agriculbare or in industry too much specialization may not pay. We have learned that heavy industrial developments do not insure the continued pi'osperity of a Goirmunity rr a city. Wo have perhaps learned that all things that are new are not necessarily better than all things that are old.
There was, and perhaps still is, a school of tliouglit that tries to teach us that eventually, through the development of ultra-scientific processes, 7\re shall be liberated from our dependonce upon the land and its products. The writers for Sunday supplements take great delight in portraying for us a world of the future in which everybody’ lives in gla,s3 houses, eats capsules, Avorks one hour o, day, and. suends the rest of the time in fruitful higher pursuits. A realistic po'int of vieAY Aooi.ild seem, to indicate that, until there is more present evidence of the advent of such an era, it YAould be well to safeguard the land and learn to \i53 its products As an example of the neo-modernist io school of thought, and because i't is of particular interest to us here tonip:ht, night look for a moment at the oft repeated statement that wood is to be replaced by neAoer, more vAonder' ful and far superior materials.
Part of the trouble Arith our thinking about AAfcod has arisen from, false ideas concerning the Nation’s v-rood requirements, founded upon the history of earlier years Avhen aa^s Aoere a yoi.Ang and building Nation. It is perfectly true that AArood consumption in the United States reached a peak about 1910 and has been steadily declining since. It is also true that,
during the past 20 7 -ears, the use of other materials tlian Avood for
Talk given by J. Alfred Hall before Ohio Fo r e s try 3 o c iat i on , January 30,
1941, at Pomerene Hall, Ohio State University, Gol'ombus, Ohio.
13
construction and other purposes has increased. It is not true, however, th-at wood is fighting a losing battle against superior substitute materials. In the first place, the perfectly enomous consuiantion of lur\ber in the latter part of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries was due in no small measure to the fact that we were still constracting houses and barns both in toivns and on the farm. Alon’^ about that time, as you may recall, the settlement of agricultural land came almost to an abrupt end. If we examine farm properties throughout the Middle West tcde.y we can almost date the structures of m.ost of them as preceding that date.
I said that the consumntion of Y/ood and Y/ood products had steadily declined since 1910. That is not strictly true; the consumiption of lumber reached a low point about 19'62 and 1933. Since that time, Y/ith oiiIa" a few interruptions, it has steadily ascended. Last year, a ^rear in which residential construction did not by any moans reach the level of necessary replacement, the American Ilation used approximately 200 board feet of lumber per capita. In the two or three years preceding they had used beyveen 165 and 180 board feet per capita per year. I speak only of lumber. In other products, nrmely, cross ties, fuel v/oed, posts, piling, paper, and a myriad other forms in whicli xiood is utilized, withJre\/ for use from our forests about the same amount. In all, therefore, v'e are norj' using approximately the equivalent of 400 hoard feet of lumber per capita per annum. Visualize that for a iriomeat; tliat Yj'ould be a board an inch tliick, a foot wide, and 400 feet long that eacii of us responsible for
consviming in a year. I do not believe that a very^ large prooortion of the American public have any reml idea of that enor.'ious wood ccnsu:n.ntion. The average business man, for exaiviple, occupying an office i:i a steel and con- Crete sly, ^scraper , driving an all-steel automobile, and traveling in an all-steel Pullman, may think that he is out of touch with vrood azid that wood no longer enters into his oum personal economy. Go^ae of you heard Dr. Dana the night before last narrs.te the daily life of a typical American male# Because it well illustrates the point, I am going to repeat, if I mo.y and if I can, the story that Dr. Dana told. It goes about as follows:
P[e see John Jones, typical /merican male, peacefully slumbering in a wooden bedstead. Because he likes the feel of it ho is wearing rayon pajamas. Rayon wa.s made from pine cellulose. His alarm clock sitting on a Y.'ooden bed stand goes off promptly. Jolin Jones stretches, yawns, and emerges from the bed onto a h;,irdw'ood floor. His shaving materials are contained in a w'ooden cabinet. His lairror has a Y;'ooden fraiao. He goes back to his dressing room, and removes a clean shirt from tho top dreuYor of a YTOodeii chest of drav/ers, dresses himself and dons a necYd'ie half of rayon made from Yrood. Having dressed, ho v/alks on a vrooden floor to a Yroodan stairumy, descends, resting his hand on a YTOoden stair rail, crosses hardwood floors to the breakfast room, v/here he sits on a wooden chair, eats froiu a v/ooden table, and props o gainst the coffee pot a nev/spaper made from Yjood pulp. Even the ink that Y\ras used to print the newspaper contains rosin from the southern pine. Having settled himself comif ortabljr he proceeds to eat a breakfast food uhiich some of us might think was made from chips or sawdust. Breakfast finished, he dons his hat and coat, rushes throuigh a Y.;ooden door to the garage, opens his wooden garage doors, backs out the car, and whirls out of the drivev/ay. Just missing the -vvoodan telephone pole at the corner, which also carries the electric light 'wires
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that soTTicG his homo. Arriving at the office ho may “walk on a linoleum floor made from cork, ground vrood, rosin and linseed oil, to his vrooden desk, where he wearily drops himself into a wooden chair for the beginning of the daily grind.
Having reached into a VTOoden desk tray for his morning mail, most of it written on wood pulp paper, and having digested it rapidly, he calls his stenographer and proceeds to dictate to her. She uses a wooden pencil to inscribe pothooks on vroodpulp paper, and both of them undoubtedly sus- pect the other of having a wooden head. At noon, after lunch, he joins a friend and they proceed to bovfl on wooden alleys against wooden pins. Or they may play billiards on wooden teibles v/ith wooden cues. After work in the afternoon he plays around of golf with a wooden club and wooden tees. Returning home, he drops into the kitchen, finds his wife preparing bis- cuits in a wooden mixing bovvrl with i\ wooden spoon, and if he perchance might be a little late he will indeed be lucl-cy if he is not met with a wooden rolling pin. She perchance may need a check which he proceeds to write with a fountain pon the case of vdiich might well be cellulose acetate made from i,TOod. The paper itself vfill undoubtedly contain wood pulp although the check might perhaps be rubber* He sits at a wooden desk oaid uses a blotter m.ade of wood pulp. After dinner he enjoys the evening paper made of wood in front of a glowing wood fire which casts soft lights and gentle shadows over the finely polished surfaces of the vrooden living room furni- ture j an evening of bridge perhaps, sitting on vrooden chairs around a wooden table, with crackers and cheese later in the evening seiwed on a wooden tray. And so, finally, back to his vrooden bed, tired and com.fort.ablo, to sleep till morning like the proverbial log of wood.
This simple little narrative has no plot, I confess, merely gives a partial exemplification of the manner in which wood touches every angle of our daily life. It is such a familiar thing, such a useful thing, such an old thing, that we have lost, in large part, our regard for its real value. We have thought that because wood was old its use could not be as satisfactory as the new materials ; and yet, through it all wood has continued to play its part and seems to be actually increasing in hmportance. Did you know, for example, that during the past 50 years 2,500 patents have been issued for materials supposed to be superior for railroad ties, and yet today not one of them is in any traportant use? The heavj/' steel trains of the Nation continue to be carried on wooden cross ties because no other material has ever been found that could be used in the American track to give us smooth and satisfactory transportation. The cormiunication and electric lines of the Nation are still carried on wooden poles. The steel slcyscrapers of miany of our cities rest upon wooden piles sunlc into the yielding sand. The mine props that make possible the wrinning of our coal and many other minerals are ma-de of wood. The forms without which many of our concrete structures could not be built are mostly wood. These are mostly old uses and continuing uses. Is there anyone among us so wise he can predict that all these D-mportant uses of wood will fade within the next generation or two, and that we shall have this miraculous economy in which Yie can live well without rrood?
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We have -worried about markets for hardwoods in Ohio. Last year, before this audience, a paper of mine v;as read in vfhich I made the statement that I believed that if and when Ohio returned to the produc- tion of good hardwood there vv-ould be found ready and v/aiting a good market. I did not know at that time just how diversified wood manu- factures were in Ohio, tiince that time I have been able to consult a directory of manufacturers in Ohio issued by your Department of Indus- trial Relations in 1939. I give you here a list of manufactures in Ohio in vhiich I know wood or its products are used. I have left out many manufactures in which I could not tell, from the directory, the material from vdiich the articles in question yioto manufactured.
Agr icu Itural implements Air registers made of vrood Paper bags
Bakelite and other molded goods, most of which carry wood flour as a filler
Baskets of wood 8.nd uj-illow.
Billiard tables
Blackboards, the frames and backing of which are mostly of Yicod
Cigar boxes
FancjT- and paper boxes
Drinking cups, and mailing tubes
Boxes and packing crates
Brooms and mops, and brushes
Chemicals from vrood distillation
Coffins
Cooperage and related goods
Dairym^en’s, poulterers' and apiarists’ supplies Furniture
House furnishing goods
Mirror and picture frames and moldings
Models and patterns
Saw handles
Sewing machine cases
Ships and bolts
Show cases and store fixtures
Prizes and games
Wood-bending, turning and carving manufactures Woodenware manufacture s Wood preserving plants
These are only a fev/ of the socondaipr mnufac taring industries that depend upon vrood; and you have them already in Ohio.
I then went ahead and made a rough analysis of the number of people in the State that were employed in saw and planing mills. The figure, as of 1939, came out about 6,000. I found that about 7,800 people were employed in the State of Ohio in the furniture industry. I found also that the major portion of the wood requirements of the furniture industry now come from outside of the State. I have no 7\ray of estimating the number of people actually employed in all of tlie industries I mentioned a moment ago that use wood in some fom in manufacture. H.ovfev6r, mi a neighboring Stats fairly accurate figures have been determined for the
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ai'iount of labor that goes into hardwood manufacture. That is, if we take hardwood timber and determine the amount of labor that goes into it from the time it is cut off the stum_p until it gets into the consumers’ hands, we find that, on the average, it takes about a man month of labor per thousand feet of raw lumber. This figiare varies tremendously frora quite a lot lower to nearly double the above figure. However, the rough figure of a man month per thousand feet of crude lumber seems to bo a fairly accurate measure of the hnportance of hardwood in manufacture. On this basis I calculated w^hat the enplo^/ment bass might be that vrnis furnished by the present cut in this State of approxinatsly 100,000,000 board feet of lumber per year. That come out to be 8,333 man years. Now as a matter of fact, that 8,333 is not far above the 7,857 employees that are listed in the furniture industry. However, you will recall the rather imposing list of vrood manufactures that I g.av© to you, and that is really only a fraction of all the industries that use wood, or its products in some form. It is perfectly clear, therefore, that the actual wood produced in the State, I'/hen translated into terms of employ- ment base, is far short of the total number of nan years actually ViTcrking wmth wood. V'vHien \je consider that, of this 100,000,000 board feet to which
I referred, a large proportion is actually rough lumber and never goes into manufacture, the discrepancy becomes much greater. Therefore, one can make the stateraent, I believe, with some degree of assurance that the actual hardwood demands in Ohio are now far in excess of the available supul:". ¥e knowr that is true without any figures, for if it wmre not true the hardwood -using industries of the State would not be importing a very high percentage of hardwood frorfi other States, ms a iriatter of fact,
I was in a neighboring State the other day, one that produces no better timber than that which Ohio ought to produce in large quantities. I was visiting a small mill, one employing not over a half-dozen men, and what do you suppose they were cutting? They were cutting oak dimension stock for chair manufacture. By dimension stock for chair manufacture I mean material cut to approximate size and design for further shaping in the final manufacturing plant. The stock being cut in this little mill ms for an order from, a citv in Ohio.
I tried to calculate then what Ohio ought to produce, and I came to the conclusion that on o. very conservative basis of growbh and yield. Ohio ought to produce somewhere in the neighborliood of 500,000,000 board feet of lumber per year, and that this ought to be hardwood. There is no reason why Ohio should buy hardwood from anybody. F3he should produce her or/n requirements in use and manufacture and be able to trade hard- v\rood for the sof'tXToods she needs, in construction especially. On the same basis as I calculated above, that hal.f -billion board feet of limber ought to employ 40,000 people the year round. If we givo each man four dependents, that means a total population of 200,000. If we accept a conventional figure to represent those engaged in distribution and services to those engaged in primary manufacturing and extraction industries, we ought to put about four people again into the picture. In all, then, we shall find that a vrood production of that magnitude ought to furnish an economic base for a population of nearly a million people. I do not
believe such a. figure is fantastic. I have found in other States too many excellent examples of populations living upon a forest base to mc.ke me doubt the possibility of the same sort of an economy in much of Ohio.
For example, I know a. county not very far from Oliio in which over lialf of
17
the urban population, about 5,000 to be exact, YTOrks all the tiiiie in wood- workin.;^ industry. I know a towi v\rith a population of G,0C0 in which nine-tenths of the people who are gainfullj/- employed outside of distri- buting and servicing industries work in wood manufacture. These two parti- cular instances I am citing are from very poor counties if measured by Corn Belt standards. Yet these populations are fairly prosperous and have remained so during most of the depression.
I v/anted to see vrhat was the distribution of the wood -manufacturing industry in the State. Therefore, I examined the record for fourteen counties in southern Ohio and found that in these fourteen counties there were actually only 59 industries that were primarily dependent upon wood.
Of these, two were cooperage plants, five Vv-ere furniture factories and 52 were saw and planing mills# These 59 industries employed 758 people, but that does not give a true picture. Two of the furniture factories, fairly large, employed 212 people, which left 546 to be employed by 57 industries, or less than an average of 10 per industry. Now the reason 1 was interested in making this little analysis was because of the fact that one of the first things that struck me about Ohio was the lack of w'-ood -manufacturing indus- tries in those sections of the country in which \rood should be the principal crop, namely, the hill counties of the south and east parts of the State.
I think you are as Yv’-ell aware of the history of those counties, a?id perhaps much better aware, than am I. Hov/ever, tliis must be said: It seems to be true that even from the beginning the presence of iron and coal had a great deal more to do with the development of the typical economy in the hill country of Ohio than did any other single factor. Tho iron industry, together with the ceramic industries, gave a fair prosperity to those sec- tions for many years. Miat happened to the forest? I v:as interested the other day to read an old account of tho tremendous importance attachod in southern Ohio to the advent of the hot-blast iron furnace which reduced the- consumption of charcoal per ton of iron almost 20 percent. I wondered what might have happened to the unfortunate forests of southern Ohio had tho iron industry not boon oxtinguishod by tho advent of choaper oros. Bo that as it may; the underlying ca.use for tlie lack of developiiient of wood- using industries in southern Ohio seems to m.e to have been this ovenvhelm- ing importance attached to those industries dependent upon the extraction of materials from beneath the surface, bfood was only a means toward the production of iron. The living and renewable forest seems ra.rely to ever have entered the consciousness of the resident population as a possible important resource upon which a pemanent economy might have been reared.
And so came the 1930’ s, when the industrial machine almost ran down, when the coal industry was no longer capable of absorbing the labor supply, when construction fell to so low an ebb that the ceraiuic industries suffered, and there was little forest base left in southern and eastern Ohio. Then wa had distress, and you heard Tuesday night that in 15 counties in southern Ohio thirteen million dollars were spent for relief in 1939. VTe must ask ourselves if it is possible to rebuild a,n economic base under the people of these counties less bountifully endovj’ed with good agricultural land than are those of the Corn Belt proper. I believe it is possible to do so. Hov\pever, candor compels us to face some hard facts. A ruin that has been m.ado in 100 years cannot be repaired by lip service nor bp- puny invest- ments over a short period of years. It will take much thre, much patience and, I fear, much money.
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The figure that I used to arrive at my estimate of the total wood- producing capacity of the State of Ohio 'was based upon an average gro'vhih of 100 beard feet per acre per year* I am sure that much of our land already exceeds that, but most of it falls fa-r, far below it. 1 am confident that in the hill country mos'b of our land can equal or exceed that ro\''.e:h average figure. On tiiat basis I am equally sure that within 50 years of orotection and proper 'ma.nagement we shall see a real timber harvest beginning in our hill country, and unless a future generation repeats t}j.e mistakes of the past there is no reason why this harvest should not con- tinue indefinitely^ into the far distant future# If we base our thinking about future returns from forestry in these poor hill counties only on the returns to land ownership itself, we shall get but a very inadequate picture of the social and economic results. I tried to point out above theat when we are growing hardwood on theso hill lands we are actually growing opportuni- ties for labor# The yield itself, translated into terms of stumpage value
with which foresters love to deal but wliich are hopelessly inadequate, this
100 board feet might not represent more than ^2 per acre per year# It is
perfectly obvious, therofore, that forestry as a form of land management to return adequate living from the sale of crude products to all the resident population of the hill counties falls far short of the mark# If we are to carry through and reap the rewards of Yhnat I hope 'will be a wise investment in forestry, we must arrange for the developm.ent of a wood- minded economy of manufacture in the hill counties# Industrialization on that basis means the development of an economy that xyIII dopend only upon the productive capacity of the land itself, -which under good pro'bection a'nd good raanagoment need never again be impaired . As a m.atter of fact there is no reason why, for another 200 years, the grotrth capacity of most of the land of southern Ohio should not increase# Industrializat j on on a wood base, if the experience of the past is any critorio'n of whet trill come in the future, should fit into the needs of tho Nation for all years to come,
I tried to point out a little earlier that in m.y estimation -wood was destined to rem.ain as an important article of consvjnption in some form or other for many years to come if not forever# It is indeed a material of many uses and many adaptabilities# We often fail to recognize it in even its present-day form, and yet the wood use of the future bids fair to taka even more varied foms tha'n those in which w^e find it today# Let m(i recite just a few new developments#
I have here an ashtray, hard, dense, black# It is made of hydrolyzed wood, ground wood hydrolyzed with acid under a pressure}, and thon pressed back into this form after certain simple chemical trea'tments# The other day I saw a piece of wood that was twisted and bent in every conceivable shape and form# And yet it was hard and dense and strong# We have recently learned how to m^ake wood itself a plastic easily worked while hot, and sturdy and stable when cool# In the last t’wo years we have learned to impregnate wood with some of the new resins, apply heat and pressure, and compress it into a form that is enormously strong# bihen many lam.inations of this compressed wood aro joined together by use of seme of the new synthotic resins we get a material that is so dense and hard tha'b it approaches steel in its properties without losing the desirable properties of -vcod#
This material is now being used in the manufacture of airplane propellers and other uses where great 'tensile strength is required.
Most of you are familio.r rrith veneer in the forra of furniture, ^iome of you are familiar with the developing uses of pl;ya’vood. How many of you, though, are aware that the newest developments in airplane manufacture utilize pl^avood for wings and fu.selage, pljavood joined with tlie new water- proof phenolresin cements. During the first Morld Mar we used tremendous quantities of Sitka spruce in the manufacture of airplanes. Then wo • developed the all-metal plane in the hope that we could avoid the use of wood. And now England and America both are sivinging back toward the use of wood in the combat plane and the training plane. Just what the develop- ments in this field may turn out to be I cannot say, but it is perfectly evident that the engineering profession is again beginning to look upon wood as an essential material.
I could go on and narrate numerous new adventures in the technology of wood use, but I hope I have said enough to indicate to you that this oldest of all engineering materials is in m.any of its aspects also the newest. For many years it m.ight have been said with justice that wood Y^as perhaps the poorest knoym of the engineering materials. This is no longer true, and as we learn more about it vie learn more YYays in which it can give adequate satisfaction in use.
Therefore, all tlie things that I knoYY teach me that in the economy of the future when the things that come from beneath the surface of the ground shall have become increasingly scarce, vie siiall become more and more dependent upon this universally serviceable material, wood. Can a State or a Nation afford to gamble with the future supply of a material that has dem.onstrated throughout tho ages its essential iiaportance to civilization?
Yes, ive can live Yvithout wood; but I am sure that vie cannot live as well.
I am equally sure that as long as wood remains plentiful and cheap there will alvra.ys be a market for good quality material.
To the farmer of the Corn Belt tlie YYOods has not alviays been regarded as an asset. There are a sufficient number of outstanding examples, hoy;- ever, of well managed woodlots on prosperous farms in the Corn Belt to virarrant our statement flatly that good farming and good woods management in the Corn Bolt go hand-in-hand. Those men rrho knov/ and love the land and its products are usually those who are good farm managers . Good farm managers have never failed to recognize that, where possible, sound economic organiza- tion on the farm dictated the production of all material.s economically possible for consumption on the farm itself. V/ood has been no exception.
The farmer uses on the average in the Corn Belt 1,500 board feet of lumber per yeart In addition he uses enormous quantities of posts and, in many localities, enormous quantities of wood for fuel. There is no question that, in conducting a farm business where there are lands that can and ought to be in trees, a sound economic organisation would dictate they be in trees and managed for continuous wood production. I Yv'-ould not argue that land in the Corn Belt, highly d.eveloped, expensively drained, suitable for high level crop production ought to ever go into trees; but there are m.any, many farms in the Corn Belt that do not consist of such kind of land.
On miost of them there are amtple acres to support an excellent v\roods. It is up to the farmer himself to see that those Yvoods produce the materials that he needs to run his own business.
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As 1 have tried to point out, the situation in the hill countries is entirely different. There the only real base of life must be th-e forest with the attendant fullest development of the agricultural land that is possible. I foresee, therefore, in the hill counties, a combined economy of forestry, forest products manufacture, and subsistence agri- culture on the limited agricultural land. To bring these things about, as I i?adicated a moment ago, will take time, many years and much money.
There is no need to shirk the facts. Unless public investment, ample, well administered, wisely handled, starts to rebuild the econoirdc base in the hill counties, there are only two alternatives: (l) the removal of a large part of the population to other localities where an economic base does exist; or (2) tho continuous maintenance of a huge relief burden. I firmly believe that the Yiise investment of a part of the present relief money in the hill countries, in enterprises designed to rebuild the economde base along the lines I have discussed, v/ill in the long run eventually solve th-e economde problems of that country. We need not delude ourselves; it pro- bably will never be possible to raise the standard of living in the hill countries to that of the Corn Belt or the richer industrial centers. But there is a huge difference betw'een a family income of ^200 a year and a famdly income of s?600 a j^ear. I Imow' hundreds of families to whom s^600 a year would be untold v^realth and with which they could live Y/onderfully complete lives, far happier perhaps than their cousins in the cities with far greater incomes. I know from my own experience the possibilities of such an economy.
These are some of the things that I hope to see accomplished in the future as the result of this far-seeing program of forestry tliat \^ou have before you for your consideration. Let us not look upon it as a job that can be taken up today and put aside tomorrow. Forestry i's not that kind of a business. Forestry, to be successfully carried out, demands unremitting attention, continuous management, and in the sort of a rebuilding process that v\re are undertaking, it will dem.and steady and continuous investment of public funds. Face the facts and know that the money that you are expending is in the nature of an investment in futures, an investment in the rebuilding of an economic base on which we can maintain a population, an investment in the future avoidance of relief rolls. On this basis vfo shall succeed.
The issue is in the hands of the people of the State of Ohio, You are the leaders in forestry thought. It is up to you to see that thes-e things come to pass. May I close with the quotation of an old proverb:
”If you would have business dona, go; if not, send.”
21
FORESTRY RESEARCH HI THE CENTRAL STATES
1/
Forest research in the Central States in contradistinction to forest research in some of our regions, deals with a territoiy in which the virgin forest is all hut extinct. Therefore, comparisons T\rith forests that represent climax types, or the apex of forest development, can very rarely be made. On the contrary, we have to deal with infinitely complex aspects of forest in all degrees of degradation and land that has been subjected to all degrees of use. I want to outline briefly, if I may, a few aspects of the vproblem posed by this complex set of conditions.
Since we are dealing with forests and lands that represent the end result of extremely variable impacts of the ax and the plow, our first over-all task becomes one of evaluating the results of these impacts upon the forest itself, its composition, its character, its groivth capacity, and in the end also the impacts of use upon the regenerative ability of the soil itself with respect to forest growth. Study of the succession of trees divides itself logically into two parts. Vie can study the progres- sive degradation of a forest under overcutting, too much opening, burning and grazing, and find that we can outline a fairly steady progression from a composition that requires much moisture to a composition that requires much less moisture. For example, throughout the central haivrvood region we have many sites on which we know' there w'ere formerly carried excellent forests of the so-called mixed mesophytic character with a composition including tulip poplar, ashes, som.e beech, some maple, and trie higher group of species of oaks. Through successive cutting, culling, opening, turning, grazing, the site itself has been degraded to the place wdiere it will no longer support trees that require as much moisture as did these former stands. The present cover is, therefore, composed of species of much lovrer moisture requirements--usuallv the hickories and the less valuable species of oaks. A groat deal of our so-called oak-hickory forest at the present time represents a degraded mixed mesophytic forest.
Sim.ilarly, w^e have seen throughout the Corn Bolt and through a great deal of the hill country a degradation from the true beech-maple forest to a mixed type including a great deal laore of the oaks and hickories. On som.e sites, the natural moisture-retaining properties of the soil and situation itself has m.ade it impossible, even with heavy cutting and heavy opening, to transfona the forest to an absolute dry type of forest. In many of these situations we find the composition ha.s changed merely to one of less desirable species due to the heavy'" overcutting and culling for the more desirable ones* Manv of our heavv e].iii stands represent such situations.
To carry the cycle of degradation still further, we need to examine what happens when land has been cleared and subjected to agricultural use for greater or lesser periods. At the one extrem.6 vps have lonids that have been cut and cleared and plowed for only a very^ short time. Perhaps the outstanding exam.pl e of the ability of such lands to recover, if not too greatly subjected to abuse, is offered by a very well kn.omi piece of woods in southern Ohio* We hawe proof that this land was cleared about 60 years
jy Paper read by Dr. Hall at Missouri Forestry said Wildlife Coriferonce, Columibia, Missouri, May 1, 1941.
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ap:o, cultivated for tivo years, and then abandoned. The sprout p^ro'wth was evidently luxiu'iant, and tiie site had not been very badly degraded . The result ai-as that a good forest of good composition came up. Tyvo years ago, about 53 years after the initial clearing, the oivner of this land was able to harvest saw timber frora that particular tract from which he constructed an excellent house. Most of his timber that he used was yellow poplar, black walnut, and black cherry. He harvested o?ily good-sized trees and, in trut?i, it could hardly be noticed that he had cut anything from the stand. This represents one extreme.
At the other end of the line of degradation brought on by ill-advised cleari^&g and cult5-vation for agricultural use we find jieavily eroded, barren sites that were formerly excellent hardwood forests. I have in mind a forty that Y;as cleared by my father and t'wo older brothers about 45 years ago.
I Irnow that an excellent stand of white oak mas removed from this forty.
I Y/6?Tb back the other day to look at it, and it is barren. Oh, there is a sprinkling of sassafras and perslimon coming in, but it will be 150 years before it ever gets back into an^.^tliing aporoaching a decent forest cover.
On m.any of the south slopes where the soil r/as originally ra'bher thin any- vj-ay, w^-e have developed throughout the Ohio Valley lands that approach the glade lands of southwestern Missouri in character. The loss of top soil and the thinning of the soil inantle has made the site even much drier than a lot of our ridge lands, hlien it gets so dr;', practically nothing will come in on these limestone lands except Virginia red cedar, ns a boy 1 recall that there was practically no Virginia red cedai* in our territory in southern Indiana. NoY\r there are thousands of acres coming up to a thick rod cedar grovd:h. These, I’d say, represent actual glade lands brought about by the impact of agriculture upon submarginal land.
I think I ha.ve said onoYLph to give you some idea of the complexity of conditions we face in our studies in forestry. Me har^e, on the one hand, the task of trying to develop management practices for existing stands that have not been subiected to the terrific abuse represented hy the opposite extremes of abandoned agricultural land. T]iis in itself is a considerable task. On the other hand, we have the task of reforestation of abandoned agricultural lands and, in betYfeen, vie have the job of fitting planting and conversion practices to verv bad.ly degrp.dod forest stand^s tha.t can be accelerated in recovery by such treatments.
I have not spoken at all of t.he economic obstacles that we face in some of these tnsks. With some of them you aro perfectly familiar, i'or example, we knoYj- that, oY-^er many millions of acres of hardwood territory, the residual culled and degenerated stand of hardiwood is of such lov\,'' use value that its removal confronts serious economic obstacles. It is easy to formulate practices from a theoretical, point of viev7 that would return such lands to productivity. The actual doing of them within economic limitations is not possible except under some form of doY^ernment subsidy.
The same is true for the replanting and restocking of abandoned agricultural lands. I doubt if such operations could be justified on a single crop basis. We have to think of most of this sort of work as a pure reclamation job, namely, the bringing back into the field of human usefulness of lands that
otherwise would merely lie outdoors for several decades. We ha\e to keep steadily in view the fact that we are working only to develop forests in the service of people. Forests in themselves are producers of wood for use, tut that usefulness of wood has two objectives: first, supplying of materials for all people to use; and second, and to my mind m.ost im.portant, the production of opportunities for labor for those people that must live in the hill countries and attem.pt to make a living from the forest. V.lien one considers that there are seven acres of good land in the Corn Belt for one acre in the hills, if measured on a basis of equal productivity, and in proportion to the number of population, one sees what the terrific impact of population on the resources in the hill lands really is. i^dien one ccnsidsrs further that, in general, our forest lands are onlp' produ.cing about 10 percent of their potential yield, it becomes apparent that the opportunity for supper b of population in the hills has not yet been approximated. There are about million acres of forest land in the
;tion'c responsibility. About 10 million of it is included in the Corn Belt, and the r6m,aindsr of about 34 million
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region |
. of this |
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in far |
m woodlot |
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ao res |
lies in t' |
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We have |
several broad jobs that we are tackling. First, there is the over-all job of land classification in which many agencies are interested In brief, we want to be a.blo to delineate vfnat land oi.ight to be in forest and what land ought not to be in forest, h'hen we have this classification as a sto,rt, vfs are trying to evalua.te our forest lands from the followi.ng points of view: (l) rdsat is there now on the ground? (C) Vhiat is the site capable of producing? and (3) khat measures cf.ui be taken to hasten tlis development of the most productive forest of whicli the site j.s capable?
This program, briefly, involves economic analysis of the land, the development of management plans for restoring productive growth conditions, the developmient of methods of reforestation, a.nd correla.ted vrith these tasks, methods of using low-grade material.
We have completed several studies in the past tvio years of the amount and kinds of defects i?i existing stands, he have found volume losses due to defects varying all the way from about 7 percent to much higher.
Fire scars and decay of branch stubs are responsible for heavy losses. We have found that stump decay in trees arising from sprouts is actually only a negligible source of loss in some territories. The small loss in volunLe does not, however, give a true picture of the total loss in volum.e when the tree is w'^orked up into lui.iber. We have Jiot yet been able to carry through such studies except in one small study down in Arkansas, the results of Yj-hich are not yet available. We hope to be able to study existing stands throughout the region in the ccmmng years to deterraine the kj.nd and irapor- tance of defect in the present overstory with a anew to the development of more efficient means of utilization, ''le also e.xpect to be able to use such info I'mat ion to prooerly orient and estimate the costs of various programs, public and private, that may be aimed at forest improvement in this region.
Our studies of Ozark stands show clearly that blackjack oak, while a real problem, is not as big a problom as it had been earlier t,hought.
It seems to die out early and be superseded by m.ore valuable stands. In short, it appears to be a transition si^ecies and may be a positive benefit to the forest by producing litter on dry, impoverished sites, and by
24
K
training the stems of other trees. Many seedlings are developing under protection in the Ozark forests, ‘^mth the elimination of fire, we have every hope of seeing our Ozark forests start on the upgrade and make rapid progress, l/fe have found also that v^re can profitably underplant some of these poor stands with pines, and have developed techniques for proper release of such underplanted pines by various types of cutting and girdling*
Numerous ecological studies have been carried out throughout the region. vYe have recently compiled a detailed map of the present distribu- tion of shortleaf pine in Missouri, and are attempting to evaluate the factors that hcove brought about its distribution. Me know tliat burning has caused a shift in the pine areas, and know also that pine now grov/s in mo.ny areas formerly occupied by hardwoocis.
lYe have many interesting things in the field of ecology and expect to have many more, hecently, a most interesting one cams to light. It was found that elevational differences of as little as six inches in the old Illinoian glaciation of the Ohio Valley made a radical difference in the composition of the forest. Tracing the tiling back to its causes, we found that seedlings of sa.ie species simply could not survive with their feet wet. A six -inch difference in elevatioxi ga.ve them dry feet and they came through. In other words, the composition of the forest itself is determined by the fata of the seedling and^ the kind^ of environ-
ment that it finds when it edly man^' examples of this
starts to try to be a tree. There are undoubt- sort of thing throughout our region* bo have
good information on some of them.
In the field of artificial regeneration, we have about come to the conclusion that we are in pro tty good sliape as far as the planting of pine is concerned. Wo know', for example, vfhat the age classes of satisfactory seedlings ought to be within the species with which we a.re dealing. V/e have made a considero-ble number of studies on direct seeding and know about where we can expect success and 'where we can expect failure.
Planting methods have been thoroughly’- studied and, in general, the region is getting good survival.
Planting studies in the field of the hardwoods are not nearly as far along* We do knov\r that we can plant under certain types of cover, and that the kind of cover ha.s a great deal to do 'with the kind of tree that we can expect to survive. We ho.ve studied, for example, a natural invasion of old fields in southern Illinois, and find that over a period of five years we can measure a large decrease in the amount of sassafras and a large increase in the amount of yellow poplar* These studies in natural succession and natural regeneration give us the very/ best orienta- tion toward the tyrpe of artificial regeneration that we can expect to be successful. We have studied the soil-building properties of various species tlvat either come in on old, abandoned sites, or can be encouraged through planting practice. We have found, for exa'mple, that wnile the pines produce more litter than sassafras or black locust, actually." the fact that the sassafras litter enters the mineral soil as organic ma.tter to a greater degree than does that of locust or p'lne makes it a rather
/
better species to induce the recovery of an old, eroded site than the other two. All three serve well, but we have learned, much to my surprise as an ex-hill farmer, that sassafras is actually a pretty good species to have around on old, abandoned land. After having spent a lot of my boyhood in grubbing sassafras in order to get it out of the corn fields, this did come as a distinct surprise, ^iie reason for the influence of these soecies upon recover^^ is found both in the effect on the organic content of the soil and in the ability of the species to lay down litter that promotes infiltration of water. In general, the limiting factor in sites that determines the ability of hardiTOod species to survive is imter supply in the soil itself. Old, abandoned sites too often shed tne 7\rater in a manner reminiscent of a tin roof. Actually, by m.idsummer any vegetative growth that has survived is living under semi-arid conditions. Only by the rebuilding of cover, the establishment of shade, and the lay- ing down of litter can a forest condition ever be reestablished.
I have been able to touch only briefly upon the various fields of work in which we are engaged. There are just as many that vre cannot touch. We have some work going on in the field of economics, especially'" dealing with the farm woodlot conditions in northern Ohio and northern Illinois.
We have Imov/n for a long time that the principal obstacle to the pra.ctice of forestr,?- in the Corn Belt was grazing. So tliere is no'^hing new to say there. ^.le have come more and more to the veip* definite conclusion that in the Corn Belt the woods oywier must make a definite decision as to whether he is going to m-ove in the direction of a productive forest or
move in the direction of a pasture. The two do not mix ver* "veil, is going to move in the direction of a productive woods he must exclude his cattle. If he is going to move in the direction of a pasture, he m.ight as well cut out his trees. However, it miust be stated that the capacity for recovery of som.e of the badly abused, forests in the Corn Belt is nothing short of remarkable. If the woods is not too far gone, and the sod is not too thick, and there is some reproduction, exclusion and protection will, in a few years, bring about a rer.arkabls transfcmaticn in these 'woods.
.1 ne
In the hill landis proper, grazing is not quite the intense problem that it is farther north. Here, however, fire in the T'oods becomes a m.ajor enemy, and the comiposition of the present forest represents the effects of reoeated burning, overcutting, and some grazing as I mentioned earlier in this paper. The first task there in mianagement is to get protection from fire. If this can be done we shall have made the longest possible single stride toyvard recovery of a productive forest.
This, in itself, however, is not enough- As I stated earlier, we are dealing with a very badly degraded woods, composed of defective materia and inferior species. I do not see hov/ ws shall ever achieve a productive forest within the tiiae necessaip^' to provide a living for tlie people that must make a living out of the woods, short of som^e form of Gove riiment investment. Whether that form of investment sha.ll take the form of very easy credit, or straight-out subsidy, or public o'lWiership I do not care to discuss at this time. Frankly, I despair of any form of credit accomplishing the task in a great deal of the territory with which
W0 deal* 'The forest is entirely too badl^/ degraded, its productive capacity is too lov\r to warrant expectation of the ability of the harvest itself to repay the total investment required to restore it.
Our task in research is to analyze those lands, find their condi- tions, find Vv’-hat we can expect from theiii in the fonn of recovery and yield so that we can give accurate infomation upon which to base public policies of the future.
27
■V
LIMITATIONS mJ) POTENTIALITIES OF FOHESTRY IN SOIITHEASTEM OHIO
Land and People are the Basic Oonsiderat ion
In addressing a meeting of the State Land Use Planning Committee I take it that v^re are all agreed that we cannot consider economic returns direct from land alone. Land use planning is only a part of a basis for community planning, and comraunity planning is only a part of a basis for over-all governmental planning. Land use planning, therefore, to meet the requirements of the over-all process, must be geared to. people--what they are, where they are, hov7 they live, and how they can live.
From this point of vievj' we need to consider briefly changes in the land use pattern, especially insofar as they apply to the territory under consideration. We are all familiar- -some of us have seen — the land use pattern of the pioneer days and the earlier period v/hen there was enough land and resources for everybody. Briefly, this pattern may be character- ized by the general term "exteiisive use.” The forest was still there and could be dravm upon at will for use and sale of products. Land that was cleared was land that could be used for the ploia or for permanent pasture. There developed m-ineral industries andi manufacturing industries that absorbed the growing population.
Then we m.ove into a transition pattern that followed hard upon the first stages of forest exhaustion. Increasing population demanded immediato returns from land and a great deal of land Trent into agriculture, vrhich we knovr now should not have gone into agriculture. Vfe know the answer to such patterns of erroneous land use; we have them all around us. The answer is, finally, exhaustion of the basic resourc0“-the land itself.
We also kno'w that in many of these problem territories 'v/here the proper use of rugged lands in support of people is of paramount importance, the nomial increase in population is som.stines nearly double tho.t required for replacement. Therefore, we can, I believe, sa.fely sn.y that the nroblems of relations of m.en to land in these rugged areas w’ill progressively become worse rather than better, if left to the kind of aiiiless utilization that has characterized the past. That, I believe, is the basis for land use planning; a setting up of permanent land-use patterns thau aim toward the fitting of the people and the land together into a pattern for perman- ent living. The questions v/e need to ask ourselves are: (l) What ought this land use pattern to be, and (2) Ifnat are the mechanisms that must be invoked for bringing it about"?
Results of Past Policies, Especially with Regard to Forestry
I ami going to deal, primarilA?-, with the forest lands and the way I believe they can be fitted into the land use pattern of southeastern Ohio. It is necessary, first, to recognize that the forest as vre see it bears little relationship to the forest that could be in southeastern Ohio. By that I mean, simply, that the forest, an organism that lives on land, is in no sense near its potential productivity. The reasons for the existence of
^ Talk given before the Ohio State Land Use Planning Committee, Athens, Ohio, by J. Alfred Hall, September 11, 1941.
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this situation in southeastern Ohio have lD©en covered many tiip.es and I do not need to repeat them here. The fact is sufficient for our consideration. Supplementary to the lov/ state of productivity of the forest is the lack of secondary wood-utilizing industries in southeastern Ohio that provide a m.arlcet and consequently an incentive to the development of productive forests. Corollary to the fact that most woods opero.tions in southeastern Ohio have been merely concerned with the extensive harvesting of haphazard virgin crops or second groirtih, is the fact that most farming activities on the available agricultural land have also been extensive in their nature.
In addition to the nomal tendency of population in the hill countries to increase beyond the ability of the land base to carry them, we have also over-population resulting from the shrinkage of a mineral economy. The net result has been, in many areas, the bringing about of a population far too great for extensive land use policies. In General, as has been stated before, we find a ratio of crop land to population, coiiiputed on a basis of equal productivity, of about 1/^7 that existing in the corn belt. On a comparc-ble basis, therefore, it vrould require about seven times the land area to support people on an extensive farraing basis in the hill section as vrould be required in the corn belt. I do not need bo tell you that there is not that much land.
Hovr Many booplo can be Supported on a Forest -Economy?
If v;a consider the number of people tliat might be expected to be supported by a forest economy on an extensive basis, we ne^^d to consider only the amount of work required to log and mill lumber. I do not intend to consider the amount of labor required to do the ordinary stand improve- mont work in a forest because I am taking the forest as a productive unit already improved and a going business. The labor and capital required to do this job is a matter for another discussion. Assuming therefore that our forest is Ovlready on a basis of sustained yield a.nd that vre know ho-w much we can harvest, on a continuing basis, I find that as on over-all aver- age it requires about 4 man-da.ys to log and mill 1,000 feet of Imaber. A little less than half this am.ount is required in logging itself.
Consider now that vje want to furnish 200 man-days a year of work to the individual. That much can be gained by useful woods emplopmient for current income purposes. Consider now that we are going to gro'w 200 feet of sawrfcimber per acre, and disregard attendant by-products such as fuelvfood, wood for distillation, etc. It becomes apparent that it will take about 5 acres to produce 1,000 feet, and it will take 50,000 feet to furnish a man-year, or about the product of 250 acres of woods. Nov/, what did we gain in the way of cash return to the land and oT.mership? In the first place, we get stumpage for 50,000 feet, •’v/hich I am setting up at |10 a thousand or equal to $500 which can be returned to land owTiership. In addition, we have 200 man-days of work at $3 a day or equivalent to $600, a total of $1100 that we can assume as a cash return from growing trees on 250 acres of hill land in one year.
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The vj'eak spot in our argument is that w^e have considered only an extensive type of forestry in vvhich all returns will be to land ownership and to the rough Icind of labor required to harvest and mill rough lumber.
I need not a.lso ooint out to you that that kind of forest utilization is principally the kind that vre have had. in southeastern Ohio d^iri^ig a.ll past years. The production of cross-ties and rough Ivumber cannot furnish the labor rosorvoir required to take care of our population.
Fos sib ilitie s in Secondary Manu f a c tu r in g Indust r ies
One advantage in c onte7up dating a partial forest economy for south- eastern Ohio lies in the large possibilities in the devolopment of secondary manufacturing industries that use wood as ravj" mater ial . We have a?Tiple evidence in nearby regions that such hardwood industries do offer oji exceptionally stable economic base for coimauxiity life. We Wave fouxid, in making analyses of such communities, that a thousand feet of good hardwood lumber can furnish or •ro.ther does require a man-month of labor in further manufacture. If, then, we assume half of the board-foot yield to be suitable for such manufacture, in a county of 300,000 acres, of which dO'/o is forest, we wmll find that 120,000 acres will produce at, a grou-th rate of 100 feet per acre per year, an oamual yield of 12,000,000 feet of utilizable lumber.
At the above discussed rate of 4 raan-days per thousand engaged in logging and milling, we v/ill have 43,000 man-days or, at 200 man-daps per year, 240 man-years. If w'e give each man four dependents, we will find the logging and milling phase supporting 1200 peoole. If we put four people into the picture for services, we will have 960 more, or a total of 2,160 people that can be supported b^?- this 120,000 acres on an extensive basis of logging and milling alone. That does not mean much to a county with 12 or 15 thousand people in it.
if, now, we take that 12,000,000 feet of good lumber, or even just take 6,000,000, wiiich we are going to use in intensive manufacture, we find that 6,000,000 feet Y\rill require 6,000 more man-months to be superimposed upon the logging and milling requireraents . On a 12“month3 basis, \fnich would be required for decent factory operation, we would have 500 man-years* Figuring on the same basis as before, we have an additional 2,000 population for dependents and 2,000 in service, which will give us another 4500 people altogether. Add that to the 2,160 which we had above, and we have a total population supportable on 120,000 of about 6,160.
It must be remembered that I am contemplating taking care of this number of people by intensive development of forestry-" on 4:0% of the land area and superimposing upon the ordinary requirements of forest management, logging and milling, intensive secondary manufacture. This still leaves 60%o of the land area for subsistence farming and grazing and agriculture of various sorts. I believe this sort of a land use pattern co/n take care of some counties. In some others, with a very heavy stranded industrial population, other xieans would have to be fouxid to work out the problems*
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What are the Requireinents for the Development of Intensive Forest Sponomy?
In order to develop an intens3ve forest economy such- as the one I have described above, there are certain things that will have to be..
First, oimership must be stable and possessed of a clear objective. In other words, there can bo no room for anything but long-range management with an objective of continuous sustained yield of forest products. Plans for such management can only be based on a permanence of tenure and a stability of tenure that do not now obtain.
If such tenure is to be accomplished in this territory, I do not believe that it can bo accomplished on units of much less than 275 to 300 acres in extent. The argument in support of this was adduced when I calculated the stumpage return plus logging and milling return on a unit basis. If we believe it possible to achieve a land ovmership pattern along this line in this territory, vdiero, as you all know, the unit of ownership is now much smaller, we will all agroe that a private ownership economy of forest land is possible throughout.
because I do not believe that such a pattern of owTiership is possible to achieve on a lot of the poor land in southeastern Ohio, and because the degraded condition of the forest on much of such land makes inescapable a long period of investment of some sort in order to return the forest to productivity, I believe that extensive public oimership of such lands in southeastern Ohio is unavoidable. The history of private ovmership on small holdings in southeastern Ohio and in all other parts of the United States that correspond to it, has been a simple one; (l) in bad thnes, owmers overcut the forest in order to get a living; (2) in good times oiwners overcut to get a small immediate profit.
There are enough examples in the hills of Lav/rence County right nov\r of destructive cutting for a small immediate profit to give any forester heart-failure about the prosnects of good forest ]nanagement in that territory for a long tiroe to come. I do not know how widely spread this is in south- eastern Ohio. I have seen these examples myself. I do loiow that through- out the hill territories of the Ohio Valley, the Ozarks, and tiie Cum.berland, we are in a period of accelerated over-cutting during wrhich the growing stock that had been built up during the depression to a very small degree will be destroyed and the forestry program in that territory correspondingly set back.
An intensive program of forest management demands certainly the fore- going of immediate retiirns to insure larger future returns. Because this is true, and especially true in rebuilding an ovorcut forest, there is reouired an investiaent of capital either in waiting capital or actual current expenditures. If private enterprise can do this on large areas of badly degraded forest, all itoII and good, but I firm.ly believe that only ths Government ca.n carry the burden. Private o"jn.ership can make the grade where: (l) Ownership is sufficiently large and the I'orest is in fair
XJroductivs condition; (2) If gov-erimient grants credit facilities •'.diere they are needed; and (3) if intensive extension work is done.
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I do not need to point out that actual forestry extension, especially in southeastern Ohio, has been entirely inadequate in the past. I confess that I am not very optimistic about the prospects for great returns from extensive expansion of educational work in forestry, where small ownerships and poor people combine to make an exploitive economy unavoidable.
It will be noted that either or any of these programs or parts of progroms that I have discussed will require investment of money in som^e form or other. I do not think it is necessary to sidestep that fact, hhere it has taken a hundred years to get a country into the condition in vhiich v/e find a good deal of southeastern Ohio, it is idle to expect to get its rejuvenation and return to prosperity, short of somio form of investment.
I ask this question, however. Is it fair or oven logical to expect the heavy investm.ents that arc going to be required to restore this country Yj'hcthor Federal or State funds are used — Ymthout asking some guaran-fee that forest practices on private lands will be in the public intcre-st? I con- strue the public interest to be the continual furnishing of adequate ravj- m.aterials for the maintenance of local industries. In the past, the forest has been considered a.s cC reservoir of raw materials avo.ilable to anybody for the taking. In the future, it must be considered as a continuous producer of rav«r materials on an intensively managed basis. These raw materials must be considered as the basis for the e^stablis’emeiit of secondary industries from vhnich people cari make a living. The guarantee of this continuous flov\r of raYj- materials is the most essential thing in the estab- lislmient of a stable and permanent forest economy.
In considering the irapacts of the post-war period, I believe we must frankly face the follovi-ng near-certainties: (l) There will be again a return of industrial refugees to poor hill land; (2) there v<rill start again the cycle of ill-advised land clearing and forest destruction that hs.s characterized the past fewyearsj {%) both of these processes merely degrade the already-degraded resources without doing anp^^bhing to establish a perman- ent economy.
I have recently cooperated with other Departmental agencies in pre- paring t'vTO definite programs for present experimeiital work, looking tov^re^rd the possibility of establishing the type of industrial forest econoiay I have attempted to portray above. In ono of theso, we are going to try to pick out typical areas in Yhiicli to establish, oxperlmenta lly, a type of horizontally said vertically integrated forest utiliza,tion that will take advantage of all of the possible products of the forost. by horizontallj-" integrated I mean the establishment of all types of forest industrias capablo of utilizing the raw material that the forest itself produces. Instead of only lumber mills cutting high grade lumber for furnishing to an industrial community somevdiere else, we shall expect to have secondary manufacturing industries established YTithin the community itself to to.ke advantage of the raw* materials produced in the comaminity. In addition to thoso industries utilizing high grade Yfood, itg shall expect to have pulp mills, distillation plants, specialty manufacturing plants, wallboard plants, plastic plants, or suoli other conversion agoiicios as may be indicated by tiie type of forest under consideration. The capacities and nature of such industries \Yill be geared to the actual nature of the ranr ma.terial. That is what vre mean by horizontally integrated industry.
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Industries will be vertically integrated in such a way that the waste or rejected products from one industry nrill become the ravj’ material of a secon.d. Me have numerous examples of partial communities in this country already built upon this pattern.
Such an exnerhi6?atal set-up ‘will be in the nature of a pilot plant with tw'O objectives: (l) The working out of the engineering application of ne'w tocii:iio.al processes in wood utilisation that are already available; and (2) the working out of the economic relationships involved in the establisliment and maintenance of such forest communities. It is now that this sort of wfork ought to be going on in order that wlien the expected wash-out comes, in post-war days, wo shall be on a sure basis when the call com.es for public ’work program.s of this sort or another.
Conclusions
I have tried to indicate, briefly a:-id sketchily, hour I believe we can visualize the use of the available productive forest capacity in south- eastern Ohio as a living base for people. I have indicated timt I believe that a large proportion of the forest land in southeastern Ohio ought to be in public omiership, and that of those lands that remain in private 07\mership--f orest lands I mean--the dovornment in return for services in the form of credits and tecriiiical services ought to require guarajitoes of the right sort of cutting practices that will maintain such lands in productivity forever. These things I believe to be definitely in tlic public interest .
I am av\rare that many of you disagree violently with any increase in the forms of Goverimiental regulation. I believe you will r.gree with me, also, that a democracy can regulate itself a.s it pleases. The type of forest regulation that I am proposing is only a part of the educiit ional process that manw of you advocate. It is, in effect, the essence of democ- racy, for demiocracy can live on only the basis of plentiful supplies of raw material. Vdien people .are hungry aud bereft of opportunities to work dictatorships develop. Therefore, I conceive that regulation of cutting practices on forest land is the expression of the will of the people that they may continue to have abundance of raw material upon which to labor.
As such I conceive it to be not only democratic in itself; it is one of the things necessary for the preservation of dem.ocracy.
33
FORESTS AND FARRS IR SOUTHEASTERR OHIO
I esteem it particular pleasure to be called upon to address a group of bankers, especially a group of bankers that come from toi/ms and cities representa-t ive of a territory in which I am deepl^r interested. Southeastern Ohio is a country of tradition — the first country settled in the Northwest territory; settled by people of high ideals and fine historic background.
For imny years they were able to hew a living from the Ood-given resources of a rich land, and built a thriving and apparently permanent civilization.
Wa have seen, how'ever, vfithin the past generation, things happen to south- eastern Ohio that give us pause and cause us to wonder if v/e have built v\risely and well.
Perhaps it would be well to retrace a little of the economic history of southeastern Ohio before we discuss the subject tha’b I have been called upon to talk about here tonight. As you knovr, I am going to talk mostly about forests, and I propose to talk about forests in their relationship to the po.st history, the present and the future of southeastern Ohio. Before taking up that subject, however, lot us consider for a moment just what was the basis for the establishment of the economic life of about 27 or 28 counties in southeastern Ohio.
"When our early pioneers came across the Ohio, they found a land almost entirely covered with virgin forest. In coiTimon with their cousins and brothers who settled almost the entire middle west, they found the forest to be a foe. The demand in those days v«ras for food and lots of it, and so the forest all ovor the middle vjest was cleared, primarily for the purpose of winning land for the production of food. You and I knov/ that your grand- fathers and great grandfathers and m.ine cut and burned timber that vrould now be vrorth millions of dollars on the market. Vie should not criticize. Under the circumstances we would have done exactly the same thing. However, there is a distinct difference in the pattern of subsequent development of southeastern Ohio as compared with certain other parts of the middle west, ooutheastern Ohio found itself in possession of rich deposits of iron ore, vast deposits of coal, vast deposits of clay that co^ild be vrorked into tile and various ceramic products, brine that could be used as a basis for chemical industry. All these things went together to develop an industrial civilization in southeastern Ohio, quite in contrast to the type of civiliza- tion developed in most of the Ohio Valley. The natural result, I suppose,
-was that men learned industrial arts, learned the finance of industry and forgot the land. The forest itself became merely a tributary to the rising and thriving iron industry. We Imow that most of the virgin forests of southeastern Ohio went into the manufacture of charcoal for the production of pig iron. With the development of cheaper iron ore in greater deposits in the Superior country, the iron industry of southeastern Ohio went out.
Then the forest had a chance to recover. In the meantime, however, a vast amount of land had been cleared for agricultural use, which we now' know ims too steep to ever have been plowed successfully, and much of which has now passed out of agricultural use. The forest had never become recognized as a base, or even a potential base, for the existence of industry.
^ Talk delivered before Group 7 of the Ohio Bankers Association at
Zane&'vi] lo, Ohio^ August 2 5, 1941, by J* Alfred Hall.
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Coning down to later years, we do not find too pleasant a picture of economic life in southeastern Ohio. In short, our industrial civilization suffered during the last ten yea.rs, and we have found that it does not offer a permanent base upon which our people can live. There is no use in delud- ing ourselves. Unless our industries in southeastern Ohio can compete in the open field with the industrial set-ups in more favorably sjtualied territories, we shall continue to have many people in southeastern Ohio who cannot find jobs. The picture of the relief situation in these counties has not beeii good during the past ten years. I merely need to cite to pou the fact that ’$15,000,000 in relief were plowed into 13 coi.inties of south- eastern Ohio in the year of 1939. You and I know that that merely results from the fact that Y^e have people and not jobs enough upon v/hich to keep them employed.
You are the financial leaders of yovir communities. It is your function in comraunity life to regulate and control the floTY of credit into productive enterprise, upon Y/hich people can live. You lead in the develop- ment of neY>r enterprises 'within your communities. You lead, or should lead, in the thooight of your communities as regards la.nd use. I vronder, though, hiOV\r many of this group of intelligent men, entrusted with these responsi- bilities Yv"ithiii their communities, haY^e really given thought to v/hat has happened to the land base in southeastern Ohio, and to the forest resource that should fom a large part of the sconoraic base of southeastern Ohio.
And that, gentlemen, is the SYibject to Ydiich I Yraiit to address myself this evening.
No'w, before I start talking about hoYj- I think a forest and the forests of southeastern Ohio, ca,n be fitted into the economic life of southeastern Ohio, I want to give you my conception of just Yfnat consti- tutes a forest. I knor;, becaiise I have heard hundreds of business men make the statem.eiit, that in the minds of most a.ien of financial affairs, the forest is not considered as very miuch of an inves'bm.eiit. The usual explana- tion is, ’’iThy put money into a forest rrhen it takes a hundred years to gro'vY a tree?” That is based upon an utter misconception of w'hat consti- tutes a productive forest property. It is perfectly trsie that if I start today with seed on a. barren piece of land, and Y/ait for that seed to grow up into a saYflog, it mmght take a hundred or even 150 years, ^ut tliat is not the Yyray we rsin a forest.
I am aY/are, also, that many intelligent people haYre, through Y'arious aY’-enues, obtained a complete misconception of Yvhat yy© miean by forest con- servation. Many years ago, because of the quotation of a certain European lavf, it became rather commonplace for people to say that in this country if we Y/ere ever going to have perpetsial forests, Yj-e Y7ould have to enact a law to make anybody plant a tree e^ery tmo he cut one doYjn. Well novv, gentlemen, that really is just a little bit silly. In the first place, let me point out to vou that our Y‘irgi?i hardvYood forests, the forests that we somxetnm.es lament haY^ing passed away from southeastern Ohio, only had a few big trees per acre. Those huge trees represented hu.ndreds of years of striving for a place in the sun, competition beti/een countless trees, and for one tree that greYY up to old age and maturity, there Y/ere hundreds that passed out along the ro\ite. Yet, eY^eryoneof those hundreds that passed out along the route contributed something to the prodYiction of that beanitiful
35
giant that our gra'idfathors or great grandfathers found and harvested.
A forest is a vory conplex biological organism. It is not something that you can have by buying machinery today, turning on the no'ver tcmorroir and expecting an output of finished goods day after tomo?:’ro''v. To have a successfal forest we must start planning about a hundred years ahead, how, let TTiS explain that just a minute.
Look around you at a hardwood forest that has not; been too badly treated# You will probably find in it trees ranging all the way from probably 24 inches in diameter do'^Ajn to little seedlings that are just struggling up through the leaf litter. Between those t-'To extremes you will find everything from the size of a pole to a sapling, and every con- ceivable size class# Now we’re going into that forest and we’re going to try to harvest that wdiich ought to be harvested. Well, there's only one ans'/jer to that# Vifa ought to take out of that woods just the old, mature trees, Wny? in the first place, they are not growing. They are
just like you anB I; when we get old, \je quit having any ideas# That tree that is standing there and looks green and nice but is 36 inches in diameter probably isn’t putting on any wood at all. Therefore, it is not earning any income] therefore, it shou.ld be cut. And, like some of us wiien we get to be 75 or 30 yea.rs old, w’^e probably ought to get out of the way and make room for the young fellows that are coming along# Well, the sami.e thing is true of this big tree. It is not growing, but it is occupying a lot of room, using up a lot of light, taking a whole lot of water tliat could m.ore profitably be invested in young, growing trees. Therefore, in rsanaging a hardvrood forest the first thing vre 've got to get into our iii'ids is that we harvest the old. trees when they are mature and get theiri out of the wny so that the young stuff can come along# Nor:, if we have the proper makeup in this woods - big trees, m.iddle- s ized trees, little trees and seedlings - as vfe harvest that old tree, it rfon’t be very long until a young one ::j.ll have come up, filled in the gap that left wher. Y:e harvested the old one, and begun to grow rather rapidly iiito a pretty good sized tree itself.
The picture that I am trying to paint to you is of a managad forest; one that we are mmniaging in such a t/ay that it produces annually a finished croD of old trees# If we do that thing properly, every year on the average, we cL.n harvest soine thing from almost every acre of our woods land. It may be just one tree that will represent the harvest for that one year. Or it night be tv:o trees, or it might be no trees, but on the average, over ever^: acre of a forest property we ought to be able to take off each year the amount of ?:ood that that forest property gro\:s ea.ch year; tr>kirig it out in the foria of mature timber; never cutting the young stuff or the inter- majdiate grovabh that is putting on v:ocd. Now do you get what I’m drivmig at‘? It would he about the sane as if I v/ere runnizig a dairy herd. Som.e of you follows undoubtedly are farmers on the side. I’ve knovna lots of bankers^, who famedL on the side, so as to make a livingi The best wo.y that I kiiowwof to run a dairy herd is to sell off the old cows wdien they get up to tho place where they don’t m.ilk vewy" well, and al¥:ays .have a bunch of young heifers coi.iing along to keep the herd stocked up. An even-aged doiiry herd is not a very good dairy hard, because they a.re all likely to go out of production about the same timw ; unless you have had your ^soung stock comi- ing along, all of a sud.den you find yourself without any groi:ing stock - nothing to produco. Well, now, that’s about tlw way we’ve handled our woods
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in southeastern Ohio so far. V^e’ve not only cut off all the old stock, but we’ve also cut off all the growing stock as time went on, so now, vj-hen we take an inventory of our forest stock, what do we fj.nd? vYe find a bunch of old stuff standing around in the woods, fire scarred and rotten, growing nothing. And underneath a bunch of suppressed young stuff that hasn't a chance to really gr ow into something worthwhile. Or, on seme of the lands that have been clear cut for charcoal production or that have
been butchered for other purposes, we find that both the old stock and the
young stock have been cut off and now all we have is a bunch of poles and saplings with nothing that v/e can think of harvesting for about 40 years yet. Both systems are poor from the standpoint of continuous yield of raw material; and, gentlemen, I cannot emphasize this point too much, the only way you can run a forest property so as to make it a paying invest- ment, both for the ovmer of the forest property and for the people v;ho
depend on it for jobs, is to run it so that there is a continuous flow of finished logs from, that forest property that can go out into industry.
Nov/ that brings me dovm to the meat of this discourse. If there were nothing to the managing of forest properties in southeastern Ohio except the production of sawlogs, I v/ould not be interested in it very deeply from the standpoint of community v/ellare and life. The reason 1 am interested in forests as a basis for living in southeastern Ohio, is be- cause they produce a very important and useful raw material for industrial conversion. That's where the tov/ixS come in and that's v^here I think we can do something about building back an industrial b^se in southern Ohio to take the place of tho industrial base that has gori.e out on us in the Iv^st 25 years. One advantage in contemplating a partial forest economy for southeastern Ohio lies in the large possibilities in the development of secondary manufacturing industries that use wood as c. rav; material. We have ample evidence in nearby regions tliat such hs.rdwood industries do offer an exceptionally stable economic base for community life. V'/e have found, in making analyses of such communities, that a tl.ousand feet of good hardv/ood lumber can furnish, or rather does require, a man-month of labor in fui'ther mo.nuf acture . If, tl-ien, we assume that in a county/ of 300,000 acres of vhiich 40^o is forest, we v/ill have 120,000 acres of forest that will produce at a grov/th rate of 100 feet per acre per year, me ought to have an annual yield of 12,000,000 feet of utilizable lumber. Now, if th...t lumber in secondary manufacture requires even four man-dc.ys per thous- and in logging and mailing, that makes 48,000 man-days, or, at 200 man-days per year, 240 man-yoars. If we give each man foi^r dependents, which might be a little low in tho hill country, wo' 11 find the logging ..nd milling phasG of the industry supporting 1200 people. If we put four people into the picture for services, ■'''re'll have 960 more, or a total of 2160 people that can be supported by this 120,000 acres cn an extensive utilization basis of logging and milling alone. Well, that's pretty good, but it isn't enough, where you have a county with 12,000 to 15,000 people in it,
Novr let's ts.ke that 12,000,000 feet of good lumber or even just ta]ce half of it, after we have sorted it and culled it out, i.nd use that six million in intensive manufacture. Then we'll require about 6,000 more man- months of Ic^bor in secondary manuf actui-e , to be super im.posed upon the log- ging and milling requirements. On a 12- months basis, which wf-ould be
37
required for good factory operation, we would have 500 nan-years. figur- ing on the vsame basis as before, there’s an additj.onal 2000 population for dependents, anid 2000 in the service, which will give us anotiier 4000 people altogether. Add to that the 2160 v\re had above, and we h^ave a total population supportable on 120,000 acres of over 6100.
how you must remember that I am figuring on taking care of this number of people by intensive developm.ent of forestry on 40 percent of the land aroa^ and superimposing upon the ordinary requirements of forest mana gome lit , logging and milling, intensive secondary memufacture . That still leaves 60 percent of the area for subsistence fanning and grazing and agriculture of various sorts. I sincerely believe that this sort of a land pattern can take care of some counties. In some others, with a very heavy stranded industrial population, other means may have to be found to work out the problem proposed.
Now some of you may be wondering just how we shadl ever achieve any such forest economy in southeastern Ohio, considering the fact that we have a huge population doivn here thafc must be taken care of now, a;.nd by the very m-ost conservative estimate, it will take 40 or 50 years of inten- sive effort to get our forest properties into the kind of condition I son describing. In other w^ords, this is all very nice as a picture of what miight happen, but, you ask--and perfectly justifiably — ’’Here we have a good many thousands of people who have to eat noxi and for the next forty years. Miat are we going to do about it?”
All right. Let me answer your question in one simiple paragraph.
It took about 125 years for my folks and yours to get this country in the shape it’s in, doivn here. It has supported a lot of people during that period. We lanow nowr that we have milked it almost dry. Is anybody so naive as to think tha.t we can reconstitute this economic base dovna here wmthout spending some kind of raoney on it? W0 cannot continue to milk a country without finally coming to the end or iniresting some kind of money in rebuilding the resource. Let me spend just a few minutes in discussing the mechanisms by which vve ca.n go about rebuilding the resource, and let me emqchasize this one point first. Either we are going to rebuild a forest and land resource in southern Ohio, or we can contemplate a long period of perpetual relief in some form or other. Public policy has its choice. It can perpetuate relief in southeastern Ohio until people get so tired of being on relief that they either die off or Liove out, or we can begin to take active steps tov/ard rebuilding a real economic base.
Now, hovv" do we go about that second job? - because I don’t believe that anybody in this crowd u/ould agree that xve 'want to even contemplate a perpetiia- tion of the sort of economic whirlpool in which vie have been cast during the past decade. You Ioioy; vdiat I mean by ’’"whirlpool” - you go round and round, getting nowhere.
In the first place, I ask you to consider, candidly and calmly> the fact that there is a lot of land, I don’t jmou/ how much - probably about a million acres, in southeastern Ohio, that is not fit for private ovmer- ship. Now'- I knovj- perfectly well that to many of you that is a violent disruntion for most of your old ideas. As a matter of fact, wiien I first ran into it it was pretty hard on me. But I ask you to believe that I’ve
38
given a lot of thought to this problem and I am nov/ giving you the result of rather mature consideration. Look at your tax- delinquent lands in southeastern Ohio, and then think about vj-hat causes them to be tax-delinquent. As nearly as I can make out, when lands go tax-delinquent, they We got to the place where they no longer earn their taxes. Well, you have a lot of land in southeastern Ohio now that is not earning its taxes. Most of it is in some sort of second-growth timber, or it W abandoned agricultural land that ought to be in timber. Now vjhat are you going to do with those lands? Let them lie idle, let them lie tax-delinquent, or sell them at tax sales for somebody to go in and skin and keep on going down hill; or are you going to put them under some sort of management? And if you want to put them under some sort of management so they can return some economic return to the people in the coimaunity, just what sort of a m.echanism do you propose outside of public ownership? Frankly, I don’t know any other alternative.
As you may know, we have started a public purchase prograra for such lands in southeastern Ohio. Eventually v/e propose to have a National Forest in southeastern Ohio, managed primarily for timber production; and when I say "managed for timber production” 1 mean for the kind of sustained yield timber production that I’ve been talking about here before. I m.ecm that we intend to have in the long run, from those lands, a perpetual flov«r of raw wood material upon which we can build a base of forest industry. And, let me repeat, you cannot build a permanent secondary forest industry upon any base except a continuous sustained flov\r of ra'w material. You might ask, ’’■''v^ell, why, if the Government can do this, can’t private capital do it?" I don’t say it couldn’t, but I Tvill say tliat it hasn’t, and so far I see no indication of its anxiety to do the job because, gentlemen, this job that we're talking about is going to require a wait of about 40 or 50 years before anybody is going to get any returns to amount to anything from the land that we are going to try to get back into production. Now, I know and you know that your Board of Directors is not going to he very much interested in that kind of a proposition, from the standpoint of the investing of bank funds. I doubt if any of you gentlemen, good business men as you are, would be particularly interested in buying up a bunch of this land at the present moment and -waiting 40 or 50 years before you began to get any income from it. No, gentlem.en, the returns on the invested capital are not going to be high for a good many years to come.
After we have restored the resource — after we have got our forests back into growing condition a.nd can begin to harvest at a good rate--then I think I can guarantee you that we can harvest from these lands at the rate of somewhere between 100 and 200 board feet of useful raw material per year. At present s-tumpage rates, those figures will mean somex^/here in the neighborhood of $1 to $3 per acre per year in re-fcu.rn to land oxw-iership itself. The Government will actually reap a large rexx’-ard for this enter- prise. In passing, it might be well to point out to you one or tx/o features of national forest policy that do have some significance to local government. Stump9.ge sales — returns from stumpage sales — to the Forest Service are divided 25^ to the county in v/hich the sale is made, and 7b% to the Federal Governraent. A further 10^ of the sale returns go to the counties for schools and roads. I am quite sure, therefore, tlmit in the long run the counties xvill get a much greater financial return from, these
35
%
lands in Federal o’.vnership than they are now getting from tax-delinquent land. There is, of course, the further fact, as I have tried to point out above, that there should grow from the raw material harvested from these lands a very large return to communities and, of course, indirectly, to local governments, from the establishment of permanent forest industries that pay vrages. Those things, I think you will agree, are well worth contemplating as a future return on public investment, and on those bases,
I think you "/ill agree, public investment is amply justified.
There are, however, jobs to be done in the meantime in getting this forest into condition# There is defective timber that must be harvested, and it must be manufactured into whatever it can be m.anufactured, sometimes perhaps at a loss# There is the forest to be protected against fire. There are stand improvement jobs and various sorts of things to be done perpetually in maintaining this forest and bringing it along toivard productivity# Those jobs ought to be furnished by either the Federal or the State Government from appropriated money on a permanent basis for forest residents. I think you Y/ill agree that we might m-ake a pretty good investment of money in that direction, aimed toward the rebuilding of a permanent base, rather than some of the ways in which we have spent public money in the last ten years in the guise of this or that form of relief.
Now let me suggest one other thought for you to carry away. I know and you Icnow that we are living in an age of increasing governmental regulation of private affairs. I don't laiow how to avoid it any more than you do# But my job is thinking about forest lands and I have done a lot of thinking about them. I ask you to look around you in southeastern Ohio and see what private oimership of forest lands has done to the forest.
The plain truth of the matter is that our lands in southeastern Ohio are split up into small ownerships and most of the fellows who own these little patches of hill land are poor. About the only thing they have to sell sometimes is what they can cut out of the woods and about the only market is some form of crude utilization like mine props or cross ties or cord wood# The net result is that they cut everything that can be cut during poor times, in order to get enough to eat, and then when times are good, they cut eveiO/'-thing that can be cut in order to make a little money#
It all adds up to the fact that your forests, all over southeastern Ohio, have been sadly overcut for at least 76 years. By overcut, coming back to the earlier part of our discussion, I mean that we haue alvjays cut the growing stock, at just about the time it began to put on value. Now that must be stopped or there will never be a productive forest in southeastern Ohio, and there can never be a secondary industry superimposed upon it, to which I have referred rather lengthily above.
I ask you, therefore, to consider: "is it good social policy to permit the continuation of practices on land that lead finally to the degradation of the land itself, to the exhaustion of the forest, and to the complete absence of any opport'anity for productive employment on products from the land?’’ If you believe that is good social policy/, I am afraid you and I have 'very little to discuss. If you will agree tliat there is something Y/rong about such a social policy, let me suggest this:
40
«
Vife are proud that we are a democracy* We believe that we are justified in fighting a war to preserve our right to ihink and do as we please* As a matter of fact, we are talking about spending a hundred billions of dollars right nov\r in fighting a war for the preservation of our right to govern ourselves the way we vj-ant to govern ourselves* Did you ever stop to figure out just how much of an investment that means in terms of acres of land? Well, we have about 2,000,000,000 acres of land in the United States, and so v/e are going to spend $100,000,000,000 in defending our right to do vfith that land as we please* That’s at the rate of about $50 an acre. I suspect that if you could sell southeastern Ohio land — all of it — for $50 an acre right nov/, it v^ould be a very good sale. And yet we’re willing to spend $50 an acre just to decide that v/e can do with it as we please* All right, we’ve been doing with it as we pleased for the last 150 years* Look at the shape it’s in* Do you want to go ahead and leave things in that viray?
Let me suggest this thought to you. Did you ever stop to consider that a democracy, much as v/e love it, really couldn’t exist except upon a basis of almost liiaitless natural resources? You can’t have a democracy in a land of poor people without jobs, with hungry bellies and no hope for the future. That sort of a country breeds dictatorships* Isn’t it a good idea then, for a democracy to begin to take some thought looking toward the preservation of those boundless resources with ivhich the Lord blessed it. For that reason, many of us have come to the conclusion that because the forest and the product^ of the forest are important in the continuation of an abundant civilization in this grand country of ours, that it has come to the time when x:e must take thought about how those forests are going to be handled. No longer can v/e permit the sort of unregulated devastation in cutting that has gone on during all the years of our history. No longer can men be allov/ed to go ahead and do as they please on a piece of land just because they happen to have a deed in fee simple. I ask you, and I want to leave this one thought with you, ’’Is it time, now that we’ve come to the crossroads and v;-e know that vfe're going to have to fight in order to preserve our type of civilization, isn’t it time to begin to take thought also toirnrd this fundamental basis of our type of civilization — the perpetuation of an abundance of economic goods upon which a democracy can live*
There is nothing new about the concept of regiilation of the right of a man to do as he pleases with a piece of land. I suppose o. good many of you, as have I, have tried to build a house in a city at various times, on a lot that I ovmed in fee simple* I ovmed the top side, bottom side, up into the air and down into the ground. But--when I started to build a house I find I run against a whole lot of things* I’ve got to build it so far back from the sidewalk, and I’ve got to build it so far in from the lot line, and I’ve got to have a sewer connection, and the public insists on inspecting my plumbing and inspecting my wiring, and as a matter of fact I can’t even build the kind of a house I vra.nt to, because the community has a committee on architectural design and they tell me what ld.nd I can build. They even tell me how much T’ve got to pay for it* Well, they’re certainly trampling a whole lot on my personal liberty, but after all, all the folks around in the community have decided that that's the way they
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want to run this house business and if I i/'j’ant to live in that community.
I’m goinp^ to conform. now, it isn’t a very long stretch of hiiagina-
tioii from tnat to coming into a man’s forest and telling him that lie must cut that forest in such a viay that the public interest is served. Because, gentlemen, if I have made any point here at all tonight, I iiave tried to give you the conception that the public does have a big stake in her/ a piece of forest land is managed. fhe public loses when you cut growing stock and set back the gro\''rtii of that forest 40 or 50 years. I’he public loses when a tro.ct of forest land burns and sets back the productive capacity
of that piece of land in forest products for a hundred years. The public loses all along the line, because nob only has ib lost a beautiful th-ing to look at; not only has it lost a place to fish and hunt, not only has it lost watershed value, but the important thing is that it has lost production of raw materials that mean .jobs to people. No'^ur, that gives the essential thought that I wanted to get across to you tonight. Look at your land in southeastern Ohio from a standpoint of what it can be mads to produce in terms of Jobs for folkS"-and I don’t mean coal and iron and clay and brine.
I mean wood.