FOREST OWNERSHIP Three main types of ownership hold our 550 million acres of forest land. These are public forests, farm woodlots, and the larger private holdings. Public forests include the State and National Forests and Parks, and timber on the unreserved public domain and on military and Indian reservations.
The National Forests aggregate about 160 million acres, and are chiefly in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States. They were created by the withdrawal of public land from private entry and sale. Within the last few years, however, the National Government has entered upon the policy of purchasing timber lands in the Eastern mountains, where forest growth is considered necessary for the protection of watersheds at the heads of navigable streams. Under this policy, extensive purchases of forest land (chiefly cut over) are being made in the White Mountains and the southern Appalachians.
The principal state forests are in the East. New York has approximately 1,500,000 acres in its State Park. Pennsylvania has something like a million acres in forest reserves; Wisconsin, about 400,000 acres; and a few other States, comparatively small forest reservations.
The farm woodlots amount to about 190 million acres. As their name implies, these tracts are chiefly the smaller areas of timber land owned by the farmers in the eastern half of the United States. They average, perhaps, 30 acres in area, and, while not a large source of commercial timber supply, are very important for local use. The Census placed the value of their output in 1909 at 195 million dollars.
The third type of forest ownership is that of the larger private holdings, amounting to about 200 million acres, and contains at least 75 per cent of the merchantable standing timber in the country. Naturally, these holdings in general contain the best of the standing timber in the United States, since private capital always seeks the best investment.