228 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The close relationship between county or municipal welfare and 

 near-by forests is illustrated by the action of counties such as Gila 

 County, Ariz., and Fresno and Mariposa Counties, Calif., and of cities 

 such as Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and Butte, whose pro- 

 grams of county or municipal development provide for maintaining 

 county or municipal camps and camp grounds within the national 

 forests. Community projects of this character are often supple- 

 mented by corporate and organizational undertakings, exemplified by 

 the plans of copper companies in Arizona to construct summer camps 

 for their employees at cool altitudes within the forests, and of stakes 

 of the Mormon Church to build and maintain forest camps, such as 

 that of the Mutual Dell Community near Salt Lake City, for the use 

 of members of the young men's and young women's societies. And 

 for every project of this character there are thousands of families who 

 turn to the forests yearly to tent on a general camp ground or a 

 secluded spot of their own choosing, or to occupy a summer home 

 constructed under permit from the service. 



This growing use means for the national forests new opportunities 

 of service of immeasurable public value. It should be strongly 

 encouraged. The fact that it entails obligations must, however, 

 be recognized. The assemblage of large numbers of people at points 

 of interest creates problems of fire protection, of sanitation, and of 

 supervision that can not be disregarded without serious consequences 

 to the safety of the forests and to public health. Within several 

 States certain specific requirements are made compulsory on private 

 lands to safeguard public health. The Federal Government should 

 not be above such laws, nor can it throw the entire burden of their 

 observance upon counties, municipalities, and private agencies, 

 although a large measure of cooperation is secured from those sources. 

 More^ liberal appropriations are absolutely necessary to install upon 

 the national forests the sources of pure-water supply, fireplaces, 

 toilets, garbage pits, and other simple facilities required for public 

 health and comfort and reasonable security against fire. The estimate 

 for the fiscal year 1924 of S20,000 for these purposes will amount to 

 an expenditure of less than one-third of 1 cent for each person who 

 uses the national forests for recreation. 



The 157,000,000 acres within the national forests, of wide geo- 

 graphical distribution, embrace in part the natural ranges of every 

 species of wild life known to have existed in the continental United 

 States. Of the great wealth of game which at one time abounded in 

 the United States only a comparatively small remnant remains. 

 There is scarcely any species that has not been severely depleted. 

 Any serious attempt to preserve for future generations a part of the 

 abundant wild life with which this country was once generously 

 endowed will depend to a substantial degree upon publicly owned 

 lands, and particularly upon the national forests. 



Settlement and intensive cultivation of nonforested lands have 

 operated to make wild life peculiarly a product of forest land and its 

 preservation and perpetuation a major problem of forest management. 

 Only by a thoroughgoing correlation between the industrial uses of 

 the forest and the food and shelter requirements of game animals and 

 birds can the latter be saved from extinction. There is economic 

 justification for such correlation in that game is a forest resource of 

 material importance. Recognition of game as a forest product and 



