urban development, high-grading, and a lack of artificial regeneration on privately owned

timberlands are all factors that have contributed to the decline of timberland. Tree-

planting programs on agricultural lands have slowed the decline of timberland. In

addition, according to the Southern Forest Resource Assessment, an increase in southern

yellow pine timberland could occur if 23 million acres of former cropland and

pastureland were planted to pines during the next four decades. This effort would

probably require subsidies (South and Buckner 2003).

 Each American uses the equivalent of a 100-foot tree every year. The American

population has increased from 76 million in 1900 to more than 250 million people in

1990. Therefore, over 14-billion 100-foot trees were grown and used from 1900 to 1990.

And, due to good forest practices, two-thirds of the original forestland is left.

 Many people believe that, to obtain environmental benefits from the forests, it is

best to leave the trees untouched. More often, the opposite is true. Forests with young

trees that are growing and healthy generally have more environmental benefits than older

forests whose trees are stagnant or dying. Tree farming using modern forestry knowledge

produces young healthy forests (Trees 1992).

 Trees, unlike steel and aluminum, are a renewable resource. In 2002, forest

landowners planted nearly 1.7 billion seedlings. Besides planting new trees, forest

landowners managed the natural regeneration of millions of other trees giving America

nearly two and a half million acres of new, growing forests. For decades, America has

been growing more wood than is harvested or lost to insects and disease. And since the

beginning of the 1980s, the total amount of forestland in America has increased by 27

million acres (Trees 1992).