BONDING NATIONAL FORESTS 



By Henry S. Graves, 

 Chief Forester of the United States 



[In his annual Message to Congress, Secretary of Agricviltiire Houston recommends that 

 Congress advance money to communities in and adjoining national forests on which there are 

 few or no timber sales; this money to be repaid from future resources of the forests. The idea is 

 to furnish these communties with money to build roads, to construct bridges and otherwise 

 provide for their development, such money to be given only where it is apparent that the 35% of 

 the gross receipts of future timber sales on the forests, to which the communities are entitled, 

 may be used for repayment of the sum thus advanced. Chief Forester Graves, who worked 

 out the details of the plan, explains it in this article^Editor.] 



A 



LREADY the ideal of the National 

 Forest policy is being achieved 

 in practically all respects on a 

 number of the Forests where 

 conditions permit of the full utilization 

 of all resources — timber, water power, 

 grazing, mining, agrictdtnre, and the 

 recreation features. On those forests 

 the commimities are being btiilt up 

 through the establishment and main- 

 tenance of industries using the forest 

 resotu-ces; there are also thousands of 

 dollars returned directly from the forest 

 receipts for schools and roads. In 

 short, the forests yield a direct return 

 equivalent to taxes and it is an increas- 

 ing rather than a diminishing return 

 such as would follow forest destruction 

 such as has taken place so extensively 

 in many regions under private owner- 

 ship. 



But in many of the forests the re- 

 sources are inaccessible and the greatest 

 resource, the timber, is not saleable 

 under present conditions, except in small 

 quantities. Under such circumstances, 

 the development of the forest resoturces 

 is slow, and there is but little direct 

 rettim to the communities from forest 

 receipts. While all agree that ulti- 

 mately these forests will be of enormous 

 importance to the country, people can 

 not reconcile themselves to the fact 

 that the forest resotuces are of no 

 immediate help now, during the pioneer 

 period of development of the country 

 and at the time when such help is most 

 needed. A great deal of the land in the 

 coimties in which the most heavily 

 timbered national forests are located 



is still in the condition of practical 

 wilderness. The very foundation of any 

 development in such sections is the con- 

 struction of roads and bridges, and this 

 is in many places enormously expensive. 

 The clearing of the land for farming, the 

 building of the homes, the building of 

 schools, chiu"ches, and public improve- 

 ments in the towns, in addition to the 

 road building, are the burdens of a 

 small struggling population, composed 

 largely of men possessed of great per- 

 severance and coturage but with little 

 means. 



In many cases the national forests 

 occupy from 20 to 60% of the area of the 

 counties and contain timber of vast 

 amovmt. Is there any wonder that the 

 people are protesting that the forests 

 which are not subject to taxes and are 

 not yielding much from timber sales 

 are not contributing as they should to 

 the development of their communities? 

 Often they use the phrase that the 

 forests are blocking development or 

 that the resources are locked up. This 

 is, of cotirse, not true, because the re- 

 sources are available for use. What is 

 meant and what is true, is that the 

 forests are not contributing as they 

 should to development of the communi- 

 ties living in the counties in which the 

 forests are located. 



This is a problem that the Govern- 

 ment must squarely face and solve. But 

 it must be met by a constructive pro- 

 gram and not by tearing down the 

 national forests, as some propose, 

 which wotild result in public loss and 

 injury not only nationally but locally. 



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