68 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



restoration to timber growth will otherwise be exceeding!}' remote 

 if not impossible, not less than $2,000,000 should be provided annu- 

 ally for forest purchases, and the Congress should authorize the 

 National Forest Reservation Commission to make such purchases at 

 any points within the watersheds of navigable streams where in 

 its judgment the public interest in the protection of stream flow 

 or the production of timber will be promoted thereby. 



THE PART OF PRIVATE OWNERSHIP. 



By itself, however, public ownership of timberlands can not suf- 

 fice to meet the national needs for wood, Nor is it necessarv\ 

 Private and public forestry go hand in hand in every European coun- 

 tiy where stable timber production has come about. Both are neces- 

 sary in the United States, and both are feasible. The pressure of 

 high timber values has already brought about a substantial de- 

 gree of private reforestation in parts of the Northeast. The com- 

 mercial use of land for growing wood is slowl}' but surely spreading 

 through the Atlantic States, in the more favorable portions of 

 the South, and even on the Pacific coast. The outstanding fact in 

 our national progress in forestry during the past 10 years is the ex- 

 tent to which timber growing as a private commercial enterprise 

 has come about and the much greater extent to which it will be car- 

 ried if reasonable forms of public assistance are rendered. 



STOPPING FOREST FIRES THE FIRST THING. 



The most urgent step for the encouragement of private forestry 

 is organized protection against forest fires. Men do not care to 

 buy timber which may be burned the next year. The risk to young 

 growth from forest fires is formidable unless joint action by prop- 

 erty owners can be brought about, and, further, unless the com- 

 munity itself takes an aggressive part in reducing it. Educational 

 measures to lessen carelessness with fire and police measures to 

 reduce the negligent or intentional setting of fires are perhaps the 

 most important need of all. In spite of the progress that has been 

 made, we still are a Nation of woods burners. 



The path to fire prevention on all forest lands has been blazed. 

 Under the wise legislation already on the statute books the Federal 

 (lovernment is cooperating with 26 States, and is about to cooperate 



