OUR FORESTS IN TIME OF WAR 



343 



cliian Miiuntains. There are today lo.j National Forest 

 units in addition to the new forests now Ix'ing ac- 

 quired by purchase. These public holdings include 

 ](;-3, 773,280 acres of land. Excluding Alaska, the Na- 

 tional Forests comprise about 30 per cent of the public 

 land, the balance being chiefly grazing lands ; there are 

 still, however, several million acres of forest land that 

 should be added to the National Forests. The National 

 Forests of Alaska occupy about 7 per cent of the pub- 

 licly owned land in the territory. In addition to Na- 

 tional Forests, there are 1-i National Parks, occupying 

 4,481, GOt) acres, areas of exceptional scenic features set 

 aside and administered for the exclusive purpose of 

 recreation. 



"In addition to the Federal Government, several of 

 the more progressive states have now acquired forest 

 land and established state forests similar to the National 

 Forests. New York has a state forest of a million and 

 a half acres, Pennsylvania has an aggregate of more 

 than one million acres. The aggregate area of state 

 forests amounts to upwards of three and one-half mil- 

 lion acres. The movement for building up state for- 

 ests will grow and result in a very considerable increase 

 of forest land owned and controlled by the public. In 

 addition to acquiring land, many of the states are making 

 eiTective progress in the direction of safeguarding the 

 forests against fire, the first step in forest conservation. 

 No less than 20 states have made some appropriation 

 for fire protection work. Furthermore, private owners 

 in many states, particularly in the Lake States and the 

 Pacific Northwest, have organized for forest fire pro- 

 tection and have given the states an active and valuable 

 cooperation. The annual loss by fire, which has been 

 the scourge of our forests in the past, is thus being grad- 

 ually reduced. There are still probably about 125 mil- 

 lion acres of private timber lands which, because of 

 their location either on critical watersheds or on soil 

 which, if deprived of the forest cover, may become a 

 menace to the public interests, should be protected and 

 made a productive asset to the nation. 



"The mountainous portions of all watersheds should be 

 protected. About 70 per cent of the mountain land of 

 the United States is, or should be, in forest — the re- 

 mainder being largely grazing land. Forest operations 

 and grazing on these portions intimately afifect stream- 

 flow and so all mountain land, whether forest, grassland 

 or other, should be under some form of public regulation. 

 "There are about 2G0 million acres of mountain land 

 in the United States, or 14 per cent of the total land 

 area. Twenty million acres of this are on the Atlantic 

 Coast drainage ; 60 million on the Mississippi drainage — 

 east and west; and 180 million on the remaining far- 

 western watersheds. Half of the mountain land is now 

 owned by the nation, almost all of this being contained 

 in the National Forests of the Rocky Mountain, Sierra 

 and Cascade ranges. The National and State Forests con- 

 tain over no per cent (abotit 130 million acres) of the 

 mountain lands in this western region ; but they con- 

 tain less than 10 per cent ( aljout 4 million acres) of the 



important Appalachian and Atlantic watersheds. Hence 

 nearly 40 per cent of the far-western mountain land is 

 privately owned, and over 90 per cent of the eastern 

 mountains. A small part of these private holdings can 

 be bought by the nation or states and added to the pub- 

 licly-owned forests, but all forest and grazing operations 

 on the rest of these lands, if they are to serve their 

 national purpose, must be conducted under some form 

 of public regulation. 



ESSENTIALS I'OR l'RKr.\RKDNl':sS 



IT is essential, therefore, that the existing National 

 Forests should not only be maintained and the 

 necessary machinery for their protection and man- 

 agement fully provided, but their area should be ex- 

 tended ; in the Ap])alachian region by purchase and in 

 the western forests by consolidation and extension, 

 wherever possible, through the exchange of timber for 

 privately cut-over land and inclusion of the remaining 

 timbered domain. This should become the recognized! 

 policy of the Government. 



"The most wealthy and progressive states should set 

 the example of acquiring for permanent forest purposes 

 land which is unfit for agricultural use, particularly that 

 to which title is surrendered for nonpayment of taxes. 

 The acquisition of timber lands by municipalities, also 

 by corporations of long life and semi-public nature which 

 may be interested in the holding and management of 

 such timber lands for financial reasons and which at 

 the same time would guarantee their periietuation, should 

 be encouraged. In the case of municipalities in particu- 

 lar, the communal forests may be utilized not merely 

 as a source of re\enue to the city or village but serve as 

 a recreation ground for its population and as a means of 

 giving employment in the time of industrial depression. 



"The proper development and protection of our forest 

 resources could be made to help to solve, at least to 

 some extent, the problem of unemployment and in this 

 way alleviate a great social evil. It is of vital economic 

 importance that the timber resources of a country should 

 be handled in such a manner as to provide continuous 

 and permanent work for a large number of people away 

 from the industrial centers. The unrestricted exploita- 

 tion of timber resources by private initiative gradually 

 reduces the opportunity for employment of labor on 

 land. Such labor then naturally drifts to the cities and 

 aggravates the labor situation. It should then be the 

 policy of the Government, states, and municipalities, to 

 maintain and dexelop the forest resources under their 

 contr(jl and adopt such constructive measures as may tend 

 to stabilize the condition in the lumber industry, and 

 in this way keep as many people as possible permanently 

 employed on the lanfl itself. In big cities in which unem- 

 ployment during the winter months is now almost a 

 chronic condition, a municipal forest of several thou- 

 sand acres could absorb at least a part of those unem- 

 ployed who have had experience in the woods or on the 

 farm and would tend to relieve the situation. 



