we're growing 25% more timber than we're cutting. In the West, on the other hand,

timber is being cut twice as fast as it is being grown.

(See Figure 9)

citizens, like you and me, who have no manufacturing facilities and are totally

dependent upon the vigor of the forest industry to provide a market for our tree crops. (See Figure (10)

Today, 34

The Tree Farm system has grown steadily and rapidly in the South. million acres in this region are dedicated to the growth of a permanent tree crop

twice as many as are employed by (See Figure 13) There's hardly a

employed in the manufacture of forest products, the chemical and petroleum industry combined. community in the timbered regions of the South that has not had, at one time or another, a forest products manufacturing plant as the main source of revenue to keep that community alive.

What's happened to this Southern Pine industry since 1940? In 1940 the South manufactured 11 billion board feet of Southern Pine lumber a year. In 1960 production was almost down to half of that 6 billion board feet per year. (See Figure 14)

1953.

(Figure 14)

Industrial employment in the forest industry of the South vas 639,000 in

By 1959, after the full effects of the 1956 increase in the minimum wage were felt, the Blue Book of Southern Industrial Progress reports employment drop

when his trees reached merchantable size, is alarmed at what he sees.

(See

MARKET

and ask those of us who are in the business, "What does the future hold?" "Shall we look to the Federal Government for subsidies to grow trees we can't sell for a profit?" There must be some incentive which is meaningful to a private landowner to keep his land in a highly productive state, but we sincerely hope that this incentive does not take the form of subsidy payments.

Mr. Chairman, we think that there is a better answer, and there is a way to resolve this problem in a good American way through an accelerated research pro

gram, to find new and better uses for wood now being wasted

-

for cull trees

to find new and better uses

for cellulose and ligin and better manufacturing methods, which will permit the forest landowner who's growing his trees for sale on the open market, to realize a profit commensurate with the risk that he must take to grow a crop of trees to maturity. (See Figures 18 and 19)

Remeber, Mr. Chairman, it's not yet possible to purchase forest fire insurance at reasonable rates. In many areas of the South we have no assurance that hogs, cattle and sheep will not destroy our crop before we ever make the first thinning. We still have no answer for the problems of disease and insects which annually destroy more timber in the South than forest fires.

Improved techniques, for producing building materials that are stable, strong, flexible and versatile, from small fast-growth logs, must be found. This can be done through a greatly expanded program of forest products utilization research, and it can be done at a fraction of the cost of a subsidy payment program which