394 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



work was commenced this year on tJic following National Forests: 

 Arkansas, Battlement, Cascade, Choctawhatchee, Cochetopa, Coeur 

 d'Alene, Crater, Gila, Helena, Kaibab, Kaniksii, Leadville, Manti, 

 Medicine Bow, Minidoka, Olympic, Oregon, Pend Oreille, Pocatello, 

 Rio Grande, Routt, Salmon, San Isabel, San Juan, Sawtooth, Sioux, 

 Snoqualmic, Targhee, Umpqua, and White River. The total area 

 of timber cruised during the year aggregates 3,021,000 acres. 



In addition to the above more or less intensive reconnaissance work, 

 preliminary reconnaissance work was done upon over 8,000,000 acres, 

 principally on the Pacific slope, with the object of getting a rough 

 approximation of the quantity of timber in some of the more impor- 

 tant lumbering districts. This taking stock of the timber resources of 

 the Forests, classifying the types of timber, and outlining methods 

 of management is one of the most important pieces of work now 

 confronting the Service and is being pushed forward as vigorously 

 as possible. 



Investigations of insect infestations and diseases of forest trees were 

 carried on, as in previous years, in cooperation with the Bureau of 

 Entomology and the Bureau of Plant Industry. Work was done in 

 controlling insect depredations on a number of Forests. On the San 

 Isabel Forest, in Colorado, by cutting and peeling 795 trees, at a cost 

 of 69 cents per tree, the number of newly infested trees was reduced 

 to 6 or 7, as against over 1,000 last year. A scattered infestation 

 discovered on the Las Animas National Forest was left to run itself 

 out. One on the White River National Forest was successfully 

 combated. The extensive insect ravages in the Black Hills, where 

 millions of feet of standing timber have been killed in the last ten 

 years, are at last well under control. An area of over 500,000 acres 

 of infested timber was discovered in and adjacent to the Wallowa and 

 Whitman Forests in Oregon; it is proposed to combat these insects 

 under the advice of the Bureau of Entomology and in cooperation 

 with the Land Office, state officials, and private interests concerned. 

 The area infested is extending at a rapid rate, and unless the insects 

 are checked many million dollars' worth of valuable yellow-pine 

 timber will be killed. 



RANGE MANAGEMENT. 



During the year the benefits of proper range control, the aims of 

 National Forest administration, and the ultimate effect of this admin- 

 istration upon the range live-stock industry were increasingly realized 

 by stockmen who use the Forests. Cooperation between the Forest 

 Service and the stock growers, both in the administration of the graz- 

 ing business and in range-improvement work, has become wider. The 

 efforts of the Forest Service to enforce federal and state quarantine 

 regulations within the National Forests, to lessen losses of stock by 

 destroying predaceous animals, and to restore depleted ranges by 

 developing improved methods of range control, by artificial reseeding, 

 and by the eradication of range-destroying animals have all met with 

 hearty approval. The favorable action taken upon all reasonable 

 requests for changes in local grazing administrations, when expressed 

 through the advisory boards of properly organized associations of 

 permittees, has given a new impetus to the formation of such organi- 

 zations and has demonstrated that the ranges within the National 

 Forests are handled in the interest of the welfare of local settlers and 

 of securing the maximum use of the forage-producing lands. 



