Use o[ Forest Products Best for Saving Forests

Washington, June 21.-"If we wish to save our forests we shoutd freely use their products," declared Wilson Compton, secretary and manager of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, in a talk delivered before the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education this morning at their 47th annual meeting held at State College, Pa.

Speaking on "Forest Conservation-A Task in Engineering," Mr. Compton said there was no other country in the world to which so sim,ple a conservation formula as "To Conserve Our Forests Use Wood and IJse it Wisely," coined years ago by the National Committee on Wood Utilization, was so well adapted.

"Relatively we in this country have always had, and we will continue to have the most extensive resources available to any people," he told his audience. "They are the most diversified. Including both softwoods and hardwoods, they furnish practically every useful type of wood known to the commerce of the world. Even more important, our forests with minor exceptions are accessible to transportation and to convenient industrial and commercial use."

The Arnerican forest problem is fundamentally one not of scarcities but of surpluses, he said, and recounted the prophecies of timber famine made thirty or forty years ago as well as more recently repeated warnings of timber shortage.

To support his contention that the problem is one of surpluses, Mr. Compton used figures recently made available from surveys compiled by the U. S. Forest Service as an aid to the study on forest resources and timber supply being u.ndertaken by the Joint Congressional Committee on Forest Inquiry.

"These surveys," said the speaker, "show in Continental United States that there are 630 million acres of forest land. That is almost one-third of our total land area. Of this amount about three-fourths is Commercial Forest Land. Over one-fourth of this is in public ownership; nearly one-third is in farm wood lands; and less than onehalf in the ownership of individuals and lumber and timber companies.

"Not quite one-half of the Commercial Forest area is in sarv timber. One-fifth is in merchantable cord wood. Onesixth more is in fair condition of reforestation; and one-sixth is substantially barren od commercial regrowth. The national commercial timber supply in 1938 was 520 billion cubic feet. The annual removal by cutting is 11 billion; through destruction by fire, insect and disease, 2 billion; and the estimated annual drain, therefore, 13 billion feet or about one-fortieth.

"Offsetting this drain", he continued, "is a present annual growth of 11 billion cubic feet; and a prospective growth on lands now bearing old-growth or virgin timber, of an additional 3-l/3 billion cubic feet. This means a total present and prospective annual growth on the Commercial Forest Lands a Billion cubic feet greater than the present estimated annual drain.

"This adds up to the conclusion that if our old growth or mature Commercial Forest Land areas are cut-over, as eventually they should be as needed, and if these lands grow new timber at a rate no greater than the average rate of growth on the forest lands already cut-over, the annual commercial growth will exceed the annual commercial timber drain, including timber now destroyed by fire, insect and disease, by more than a billion cubic feet, or by 8 per cent."

The speaker called attention to the improvements in timber products such as the timber connector, a simple metal ring used in timber joints and which increases by ftom 2 to 5 times the strength of ordinary bolted timber joints. Mentio.n was likewise made of the improved grading methods, preservative and protective treatments of wood, and the introduction of laminated construction and plywood.

"The lumber industry is the oldest great American industry. More than any other, it has blazed the trails westward. For economic reasons it has been a migratory industry. For economic reasons it is now settling down. Formerly its livelihood came from the rush of 'liquidation' of virgin timber. Hereafter," he concluded, "its livelihood will come from the conservative management of its forest lands, from widened markets for its products and from forest industry conceived of as a permanent enterprise and a continuing source of employment."

TWO IilVIIITORIIS TOR TIDAI.TRS' GOIflITIIIDI{CE

At our Fresno ycrrd we ccrrry complete stocks ol USG Wectherwood Insulction Bocrds card USG Bed Top Insulcting Wool, Douglcrs Fir Commons qnd Clecrs, Redwood, Red Cedcr Shingles, Plywood cnd Ocrk Flooring.

At OcHcnd we specicrlize in Dougkrs Fir Commons, Rough Clecrs curd Finish.