Of Pepys, Swedes, And Small Forests

"My Lord Carnarvon," Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary for May 5, 1667 (a Sunday on which he also recorded hearing a dull sermon and complained that all the pretty women in the congregation had gone to the country) "says of wood that it is an excrescence of the earth provided by God for the payment of debts."

Three centuries later pocketbook pressures on individually held forest land still are a barrier to good management and conservation even though one no longer speaks out about the problem with the cynical relish of the noble lord.

Small holdings (acreages of up to 5,000 which, in terms of management at least, are "small" in relation to "medium" holdings of 5,000 to 50,000 acres and "large" ones of over 50,000) represent about 54 percent of the total commercial forest land in the 48 contiguous states. Yet the small holdings produce far less than half of the annual timber cut. The Forest Service's rankings of high, low, and medium productivity per acre indicate that only about 40 percent of the small-holdings acreage falls into the highest class, compared with nearly 80 percent of both public and large private holdings. And within the up-to-5,000 acre classification there is slight but consistent relation between size and productivity, with holdings of under 100 acres rating lowest of all.

It was on the basis of this and other evidence turned up in Timber Resources Review that Richard E. McArdle, Chief of the Forest Service, observed that "The real key to America's future timber supply lies in the hands of one out of every ten families who own small forests."

These Forest Service data are the starting point of a study that Charles H. Stoddard, formerly of the RFF staff, has made into the management of small forest holdings and of present and proposed programs for increasing their yields of timber. His preliminary findings indicate that on most small holdings, particularly those of less than 100 acres, purely economic factors are weak incentives to better management—in part, perhaps, an echo of Lord Carnarvon's bleak comment from the 17th Century.

Things seem to be better managed in Sweden. Dean Thorsten Streijffert, of the Royal School of Forestry in Stockholm, said recently that a survey in his country shows that there was no great difference in the management of forests belonging to the government, to lumber and pulp companies, and to private owners. "The last group," he notes, "is dominated by the farmers and thus represents the small forest holdings as compared with the big holdings belonging to the two other groups." Even in Sweden, he added, this finding was a surprise to many people.

In Washington as principal speaker of one of the programs of the 1961 Resources for the Future Forum, Dean Streijffert analyzed some of the reasons for the good showing of smallholders. Size of tract and type of ownership, he pointed out, are quite separate factors. "The size of holding has a bearing primarily on the efficiency of management, whereas the ownership largely decides the forest policy of the owner, or at least his general attitude on the management of his forest property as part of his total property." In most instances the enterprise as a whole means farming.

Consequently, Sweden's programs for small forests have aimed both at overcoming disadvantages of small scale and at integration of farm and forestry operations. Although government regulation of cutting remains a useful part of Sweden's forestry program, the main emphasis in recent efforts to improve management of small holdings has been on fostering a favorable economic climate together with education and technical assistance. Chief among the instruments through which progress has been made are the Forest Owners' Associations and the Forest Cooperatives. In American terminology both types of organization are cooperatives; the Associations, in fact, have the broader cooperative functions, while the Cooperatives' principal task is to provide high-level operating services that otherwise would be beyond the reach of most individual small holders.