FOREST SERVICE. 303 



To provide for increased acquisitions, the commission has consist- 

 ently recommended annual appropriations of $2,000,000, or, in other 

 words, a return to the scale of expenditures established by the Weeks 

 law itself for the first 5 years of its operation. There can be no 

 question of the soundness of such recommendations. The situation 

 requiring constructive action by the Government is growing so 

 rapidly in magnitude and public importance that measures adequate 

 ten years ago now fall far short of the minimum public requirements. 

 Delay will mean an aggravation of the rapid decline in the pro- 

 ductive capacity of lands essential for timber production, yet with a 

 probable advance in the prices which must be paid. 



In the matter of land exchange, made possible by the passage of 

 the general exchange act of March 20, 1922, and of other more 

 specific measures, the year has been a period of study on the part of 

 both the Forest Service and the owners of the lands subject to the oper- 

 ation of the exchange acts. The Forest Service did not deem it to 

 the public interest to enter upon an extended program of exchanges 

 until the relationship of the private lands to the national forest 

 properties had been fully developed by careful study and sound plans 

 formulated, or, more important still, until bases of valuation capable 

 cf economic justification had been evolved. The trend of land values, 

 particularly of the types under consideration, obviousl}^ was variable 

 and uncertain, and safety of appraisal lay only in thorough study 

 of the trend in each locality. It has been difficult to reach agree- 

 ments as to the worth of a number of acceptable properties, and only 

 a few minor exchanges were consummated. The Forest Service, 

 however, enters the new fiscal year with adequate exchange plans for 

 every national forest and with voluminous data bearing on valua- 

 tions. As the fiscal year came to an end there was increasing evi- 

 dence that the values placed by many owners on private lands within 

 the forests were gradually coming into harmony with those of the 

 Forest Service, so that while the year ended without much to show 

 in land actually acquired, an adequate and stable foundation was 

 prepared for a program of exchanges based on conservative values. 



The outstanding^ development in the classification of the national 

 forests under the act of August 10, 1912, was the completion of the 

 extensive classification of the Tongass Forest in Alaska. The inten- 

 sive examination and classification of approximately 200,000 acres 

 in that forest and the extensive and intensive classification of the 

 Chugach Forest, also in Alaska, will complete this work. In the 

 continental United States a few minor errors of classification were 

 discovered and corrected, but appeals from the classification have 

 dropped to a negligible number, and it now seems strikingly apparent 

 that the classification commands full public confidence and is gener- 

 ally accepted as correct and dependable. 



Practically all claims initiated prior to the creation of the national 

 forests and almost all the claims initiated under the act of June 11, 

 1906, have now been adjusted, so that the claims work has dropped 

 to a position of unimportance. The exploitation of mineral resources 

 within the forests continues unabated, but largely under leases or 

 licenses which offer no complicated questions of title or adminis- 

 tration. 



