FOREST SERVICE. 207 



self materially reduce flood losses on the Ohio, nor perpetuate the 

 enormous wood-using industries of the region, but it has exceptional 

 importance because Federal participation in the solution of the two 

 outstanding problems, in cooperation with the very effective work 

 of the State itself, wiU eventually introduce new conditions of forest 

 protection and management throughout the entire region. 



The National Forest Reservation Commission, which controls all 

 purchases of land under the Weeks law, has recommended that 

 $2,000,000 be appropriated for the purchase of forest lands during 

 the fiscal year 1924. This would be a return to the scale of expend- 

 itures established by the Weeks law itself for the first five years 

 following its passage. W^ith the field organization that effective 

 work necessitates, and in view of the size of some of the forest hold- 

 ings offered for purchase, $2,000,000 is the least that can be ex- 

 pended with complete efficiency. Its expenditure should add to 

 the national forests 400,000 acres of forest land. Extension of the 

 eastern national forests should not progress at any lesser rate. 

 The original program outlined following the passage of the Weeks 

 law is only about half completed. During the intervening 11 years 

 the area of privately owned forest land in the United States subject 

 to denudation, fire damage, and erosion, conditions the Weeks 

 law was designed to remedy, has expanded enormously, despite the 

 effective work instituted by some oi the States. Outside of public 

 domain reservations, there have been brought under public control 

 and protection during this period, by all public agencies combined, 

 a total of approximately 10,000,000 acres of forest land, while the 

 total acreage cixju over, and to some extent denuded by fire or dam- 

 aged by erosion, has jumped from approximately 144,000,000 to 

 213,000,000 acres. It is essential that purchases by the Govern- 

 ment more nearly keep pace with the progress of deforestation. A 

 further reason for accelerating purchases is that the lands may now 

 be bought on more favorable terms than can be expected in the 

 future. 



In last year's report special mention was made of the needs of the 

 northern "Ozark region of Missouri; the Berkshire Hills region of 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut; the parts of Kentucky drained by 

 the Cumberland and Kentucky Rivers; the Brown County section 

 of Indiana; the Piedmont Plateau of Virginia, North Carolina, and 

 South Carolina; and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Wisconsin, 

 Alabama, West yirginia, Mississippi, and Maryland. The passage of 

 another year and further studies only serve to emphasize more 

 clearly the need for Federal ownership of key areas within such 

 regions. 



One of the most significant events in the history of the national 

 forest movement occurred on March 20, 1922, when the President 

 signed the bill authorizing the exchange of privately owned forest 

 lands within any national forest for Government owned land or 

 stumpage within any national forest in the same State. No other 

 forest legislation passed in recent years will have so far-reaching an 

 influence for the betterment and extension of the public forest 

 properties. Under its terms, private owners who can not handle 

 theu- holdings advantageously either independently of the national 

 forests or under correlated use can offer them in exchange for lands 

 or stumpage of equal value and better located for their purposes; 



