868 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



late a plan for public-road development 

 based on local needs. These plans 

 should be carried into sufficient detail 

 to provide a reasonably accurate esti- 

 mate of the cost of the road construction 

 which it is proposed that the Govern- 

 ment shall undertake. They should be 

 accompanied by careful and conserva- 

 tive appraisals of the value of the nation- 

 al forest timber in each locality and a 

 forecast of the future income which the 

 forests will bring in from all sources. 

 On the basis of the showings of fact 

 regarding the value of the Government's 

 property, its potential income-yielding 

 capacity, and the needs of the public, 

 Congress should be asked to appropriate 

 for the construction of specific projects 

 recommended by the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture. The cost of such road con- 

 struction by the Government should 

 constitute an advance of the amounts 

 which the forests would later make 

 available for local use. In effect, there- 

 fore, the roads would become an obliga- 

 tion upon the forests, to be extinguished 

 as their resources come into commercial 

 demand." 



EXCHANGES OF LAND WITH STATES 



The Secretary then recommends 

 changes in the system of homesteading, 

 and suggests the wisdom of releasing 

 certain parts of the forests by exchange 

 of property with the States, as follows: 



"An important part of the forest prob- 

 lem is to get the right line drawn be- 

 tween farm and forest. Under private 

 ownership considerations enter which 

 do not always lead to the best use of the 

 land. On the national forests the ques- 

 tion is determined by a careful study of 

 what the land is best fitted to produce 

 and what the public most needs. Agri- 

 cultural development is provided for 

 either by excluding from the forests 

 land chiefly valuable for other than 

 forest purposes or by listing land for 

 settlement under the forest homestead 

 act. The work is carried out through 

 land classification, which was aggres- 

 sively pushed last year. The elimina- 

 tion made or determined upon totaled 

 over 2,000,000 acres, while systematic 

 classification was conducted on 100 of 

 the forests, and over 280,000 acres of 



land were listed for settlement under the 

 forest homestead law. The area in the 

 forests at the close of the year, exclusive 

 of land not the property of the Govern- 

 ment, was slightly over 165,000,000 

 acres. 



"There is need for similar classifica- 

 tion work outside of the national forests 

 wherever the public domain is timbered. 

 There are still many areas which should 

 be added to the forests. Wherever the 

 land will have largest permanent value 

 through use for forest production it 

 should be held in public ownership. 

 Timbered portions of the public domain 

 are now unprotected against fire and 

 trespass and are often a source of danger 

 to adjacent lands. Under existing law 

 the President has in the seven States of 

 California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, 

 "Montana, Colorado, and Wyoming no 

 authority to add such lands to the pres- 

 ent national forests. Legislative pro- 

 vision should be made for applying the 

 classification principles in these States. 



"There is also need for legislation to 

 permit the consolidation of national 

 forest holdings through land exchanges 

 with States and private owners. Some 

 of the forests contain a great deal of land 

 which was acquired from the Govern- 

 ment before the forests were established. 

 Exchanges of land on the basis of equal 

 values would be very advantageous to 

 the Government, since the cost of 

 administration and protection would be 

 materially reduced." 



TIMBER SALES 



The report outlines the policy of the 

 department regarding timber sales in the 

 national forests as follows : 



* ' In its handling of timber sales on the 

 national forests the department is 

 confronted with a situation radically 

 different from that which obtains with 

 respect to the grazing. While almost all 

 the range on the forests is in demand, 

 most of the timber is not. To a large 

 extent development work here means so 

 handling the timber that it will be an 

 important factor in opening up the 

 country. Wherever and whenever gen- 

 eral business and market conditions 

 make it possible to sell large bodies of 

 now inaccessible timber, the aim is to 



