American forests are growing 42 percent faster than they are being cut and 380 percent faster than they were growing back in 1920. At least, that was true in 2000 when this report evaluating the state of forests in the United States was published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Though the report is a bit old, its conclusions should be just as valid today.
What the report does not say is that the internal combustion engine is one of the main reasons for the healthy state of American forests. As recently as 1910, farmers used horses and other animals for almost all heavy-duty farm work. To supply these animals with food, farmers typically dedicated a third or more of their farms to pastureland. This pasture provided farmers with no direct revenue, just feed for their draft animals.
With development of the internal combustion engine and production of tractors, trucks, and cars on Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, these vehicles quickly replaced animal power, releasing the pasturelands for more productive uses. It is difficult to be precise, but data from the Department of Agriculture suggest that farmers converted at least 80 million acres of pastures to forests and another 40 million acres to crop lands.
In contrast, it is likely that urban sprawl led to the conversion of no more than around 40 million acres of land to urban uses. Urban areas today cover about 110 million acres, but if they had continued to grow at 1920 densities after 1920, they would still cover more than 70 million acres. So the internal combustion engine, which is often blamed for urban sprawl, actually allowed three times as many acres of land to be put into productive uses than were “consumed” by sprawl.
Of course, sprawl doesn’t really consume land, it just converts it to other, more productive uses. Sprawl doesn’t even consume open space, because low-density development includes lot of open spaces (such as backyards) that are probably far more valuable (in terms of frequency of recreation uses) than most rural open spaces. In any case, the net benefit of the internal combustion engine for land productivity is far greater than tis cost.
Not only farm animals, but home heating. I’ve seen photos of Northeast US towns from 100 years ago without a tree to be seen.
aloysius9999,
Good point. In the late nineteenth century, more than half the wood cut in the U.S. was burned as fuelwood. That was largely eliminated by mid-twentieth century. Most undeveloped countries consume far more wood per-capita than developed countries for this reason.
Of course, sprawl doesn’t really consume land, it just converts it to other, more productive uses. Sprawl doesn’t even consume open space, because low-density development includes lot of open spaces (such as backyards) that are probably far more valuable (in terms of frequency of recreation uses) than most rural open spaces.
Public vs private uses privileging notwithstanding, the only reason the ‘productive uses’ is superficially true is because Randal chose not to count ecosystem services.
But maybe the Koch boys – aside from investing in anti-environment causes – are marshaling capital to grow food in skyscrapers to corner the food market in the future – that would explain this post nicely.
DS
I just knew that this would get Highwayman, uh, Dan’s hackles up! I think you leftists are confused, though. The Communists loved the internal combustion engine. What’s that they say about leftists? Oh, yeah, they’re like watermelons: green on the outside, red inside.
Antiplanner wrote:
“As recently as 1910, farmers used horses and other animals for almost all heavy-duty farm work.”
I have here a copy of “The Shock of the Old” by David Edgerton. ISBN 1 86197 296 2.
Page xv has an image of a horse-drawn combine harvester in Walla Walla County, Washington, 1941. It says “By this time the tractor had been displacing horses and mules in some areas for twenty-five years.
“It is difficult to be precise, but data from the Department of Agriculture suggest that farmers converted at least 80 million acres of pastures to forests and another 40 million acres to crop lands.
In contrast, it is likely that urban sprawl led to the conversion of no more than around 40 million acres of land to urban uses. ”
So 40 million acres of good farmland is reclaimed, as well as 80 acres which are fit only for trees. At the same time, 40 million acres of land on the outskirts of town, of an ill-described nature are taken away as sprawl. Hmmm…..
“Of course, sprawl doesn’t really consume land, it just converts it to other, more productive uses. ”
The same could be said of feeding horses on that 40 million acres.
In fact, if I wanted to thank anything, I would thank electric motors. The development of effective electric motors (and in San Francisco, a cable system) enabled the conversion from horse trams to mechanical trams.
Although horse trams are easy to push around on level ground, on hills they bust up the horse’s legs. Once in service as an adult horse, it was rare for such a horse to survive for more than three years. On many photographs the swollen knees of the horses are only too evident.
Horse trams have a role to play today on short flat distances, where they fit into a transport-cum-tourist attraction role. But they no longer destroy horses in general use. Good.
Adding a bit more detail to horse drawn agriculture is this entry in the book (page 33):
“The United States provides the most graphic example. Agriculture horsepower peaked in 1915 with more than 21 million on American farms, up from 11 million in 1880, a level to which it had returned by the mid-1930s. The US case is particularly interesting because at the beginning of the twentieth century it had highly mechanised agriculture, but this was horse-powered agriculture.”
Dan, pasture is private use, and not all that ecologically sound either. I’ll grant you that it’s more scenic than a Target supercenter though.
n4, the privatize-everythingers want you to believe that big backyards are preferred over public goods like parks, and that big backyards are equivalent to meadows, pasture, woods, etc. And watch the neighborhood get upset when they lost the cow field to Toll Bros ticky-tack, citing loss of ‘views and open space’. Funny how you never see anyone complain that a shed in the backyard ruins a scenic view. It was a weak argument two generations ago when they trotted it out and it hasn’t gotten any better since.
Speaking of old, specious talking points, another trotted out here and plopped down authoritatively: forests golly are regrowing!!!!! and isn’t that proof of how wonderful our policies are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 Of course they are recolonizing abandoned fields, esp where contours don’t allow for 50 mph industrial monoculture farming, but hey, sounds simply wonderful, right?
DS
“To supply these animals with food, farmers typically dedicated a third or more of their farms to pastureland. This pasture provided farmers with no direct revenue, just feed for their draft animals.”
It also provided farmers with free fertilization courtest of animal manure, and it allowed the land to rest fallow while being rotated between crops and replenish its nutrients. Many famrers still rest the land this way. They hay this land during the rest (or even use it as pasture for beef cattle or sheep), and feed the hay to their animals. That is certainly what my brother-in-law and uncle do on their farms.
“With development of the internal combustion engine and production of tractors, trucks, and cars on Henry Ford’s moving assembly line, these vehicles quickly replaced animal power, releasing the pasturelands for more productive uses.”
Well, not entirely, but I’ll partially grant you your point. Yields also went up per acre, and transportation, processing, and preservation improved reducing spoilage, allowing farm lands on questionable soils (New England, the piney South, the sides of hills in the Appalachians, etc.) to be returned to forestry because they could not economically compete against midwestern and western farms.
This is the same reasons the stockyards closed in Chicago and Kansas City. Improved transportation and refrigeration eliminated the need to slaughter animals at the final market.
“It is difficult to be precise, but data from the Department of Agriculture suggest that farmers converted at least 80 million acres of pastures to forests and another 40 million acres to crop lands.”
And yet, have things really improved for the farmer? The American farmer now is typically very deeply in debt to pay for his hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars in mechanized equipment. Many farm families have been driven off the land by the debt and consolidation, destroying the fabric of conservative rural America and sending the displaced into the liberal cities. The American taxpayer is forced to shell out billions in subsidies to the remaining farmers to keep them afloat financially.
And yet, then there are those rebels, my kin, the Amish, who refused this modernization movement. They are the most prosperous section of the farming community, they have rejected all government subsidies, including medicare and social security, and all the farm work is done by animal draft power and human hands. While the mechanized and subsidized American farmer has been going out of business for many years, the Amishmen having been saving their money and buying them out and forming new communities all across this great country. One can easily project the trends out of the ever shrinking mechanized farm workforce, and the ever expanding Amish population and their families averaging 8 children and see where things are heading.
Interestingly, when you look around Amish settlements in Pennsylvania and Ohio, you can see the same reforestation areas on the marginal hilly land, and yet the Amish still have their draft animals and pastures. There is more at work in the reforestation than the elimination of farm draft animals.
“Sprawl doesn’t even consume open space, because low-density development includes lot of open spaces (such as backyards) that are probably far more valuable (in terms of frequency of recreation uses) than most rural open spaces.”
Of course sprawl consumes open space. It destroys either contiguous forests or contiguous open fields and meadows and results in a fragmented ecosystem that is hostile to many species of wildlife which require large contiguous spaces to thrive.
I agree that economic value is purely the perspective of human use and enjoyment, since humans form the economy. But humans like doing more than playing in their back yard. Many of us like hiking and biking and boating and camping and fishing and hunting in vast wild spaces, observing wildlife in its natural habitat and generally getting away from much of modern development. You of all people should know that.
Moreover the people who came to America from Britain, Ireland, Germany and France and founded this country are people who vehemently disputed that wild nature and forests and the other common goods of the earth given us by God were only to be enjoyed by the privileged rich who could afford them and control them by force of arms and pretense of law, such as royalty and aristocracy. Adam’s blessings of dominion and stewardship over natural creation were given to all his descendants. There was no restriction of it only to those who could afford a big enough backyard to live like the King of England or Ted Turner.
“The health state of America’s forests”? What a crock!
Compare John Muir’s descriptions of forests 100+ years ago to conditions on the ground. Forests are overgrown, crowded, mono-cultural plantations lacking in biodiversity thanks in large part to fire suppression. And the outrageous claim that engines are responsible for the “health” of the forest? Orwellian.
You’d be amazed how modern Amish can be.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/business/smallbusiness/08sbiz.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/03/09/national/main4578.shtml
Forests are overgrown, crowded, mono-cultural plantations lacking in biodiversity thanks in large part to fire suppression.
Only the third-half of forest land with a fire return interval of 110 years or less. All others don’t apply. How on earth did forests survive for 245 million years without man?
DS
What’s a “third-half”? And can you provide a source? And to answer your question, these forests evolved with lightning-caused fires, as I’m sure you know.
At least .33-.5 of forests in western US have FRIs greater than fire suppression period. Lighting caused fires changes exactly zero from the assertion about FRIs and is effectively irrelevant (yes, forests are adapted to fire. Thanks!). You can check any forest ecology/fire ecology/wildland/silviculture text about FRI.
DS
I am not sure what Dan’s point is anymore. I might even agree with him, but I can’t tell.
“At least .33-.5 of forests in western US have FRIs greater than fire suppression period.”
Are you saying 1/3 to 1/2 of forest types or 1/3 to 1/2 of forested area? And forest with the highest return intervals are usually at higher elevations, which make up a small percentage of the total land mass and are sparsely populated. And certainly PNW doug fir forests have a high fire return interval and make up a big chunk of forested area. So perhaps I should have related my statement specifically to the lower- and mid-elevations of the Sierra and the expansive Ponderosa forests, both of which have been heavily impacted by fire suppression.
I’ve read several books on the subject, including Pyne. No need to be condescending and rude. Unless you’re unable to control that aspect of your personality. In which case, I forgive you.
I’ve had formal education in forest ecology, yada. And I’ve read several books on the subject too. I highly recommend Koch’s (no not them) Forty Years a Forester for descriptions of the early days of the FS as historicity for how we got to where we are today.
Nonetheless, the fire return interval bit and its misuse has already been discussed here several times. Blanket statements such as in 12 don’t work in reality.
Thanks!
DS
O’Toole, do the world a favor and jump off a bridge!
“Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.”
-Henry David Thoreau