46 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRKJULTURE. 



COOPERATION WITH THE STATES. 



The broad question of timber supplies and permanent forests is a 

 national one. It can not be handled piecemeal by uncorrelHted local 

 afrencies. Neither can it be handled through an inflexible sj^stem im- 

 posed Avithout regard to local conditions. The recognized police 

 powers of the several States should be brought into play to stop 

 forest fires and prevent the devastation of privately owned forest 

 land. At the same time, the Federal (government should take an 

 active part in aiding the forest activities of the States, in standard- 

 izing technical requirements as between the States, and in extending 

 the national forests. But the public should not be expected to bear 

 the entire burden. Responsibility rests upon the forest owner to 

 comply witli equitable requirements designed to keep employed in 

 groAving timber lands which are not needed for agriculture. 



The Congress will be asked to provide an appropriation sufficiently 

 large to permit the department to cooperate effectiA-ely with all the 

 States which are prepared to work with it in preventing and con- 

 trolling forest fires and other causes of devastation. It will be re- 

 quested, also, to provide funds for the reforestation of devastated 

 lands within the national forests, and for additions to them through 

 further land purchases and through exchanges of national forest 

 areas or timber for private lands of equal values. 



FOREST EXPERniKNT STATIONS NEEDED. 



Full productiveness of our forests can not be secured without full 

 information regarding the means of controlling their growth. Un- 

 fortunately, at a time when better knowledge is particularly urgent, 

 the machinery for obtaining it has been seriously curtailed as the 

 result of decreased appropriations. One consequence of this has been 

 the virtual abandonment of the forest experiment stations in the West, 

 at which many of the most important investigations were centered. 

 The number of these stations should be increased, not reduced. 

 They are as necessary to forestry as the agricultural experiment sta- 

 tions are to progress in agriculture, and there should be at least one 

 station in each of the main forest regions of the country. Economic 

 studies dealing with the prospective requirements of the various in- 

 dustries, and, in general, with the demands which the forests of the 

 country should be prepared to meet, also are essential. In the face 

 of enforced curtailments in the use of wood, due to the depletion of 

 present supplies, it is as important to study methods of economically 

 and effectively using what we have as it is to learn how to grow more 

 wood. Work along all these lines should be greatly enlarged and 

 the necessary funds should be provided for the purpose. 



