FOREST SERVICE. 173 



for lands which block in with earlier acquisitions. The results al- 

 ready obtained through administration of the purchased areas, how- 

 ever, and the signal demonstration that has been made of the ability of 

 the Government to obtain on favorable terms lands public ownership of 

 which is advantageous, not only for the protection of navigable 

 streams but also, and at the same time, for other Xational Forest pur- 

 poses, point to the importance of a renewal of the forward move- 

 ment when the war is over. 



Exchanges of land are primarily for the purpose of consolidating 

 the holdings of the Government. They can be made only as author- 

 ized by specific acts of Congress. Hitherto exchanges have been prin- 

 cipally for State school lands. The first exchanges made were on 

 the basis of equal area and value. Subsequently exchanges were pro- 

 vided for on a basis solely of equal value. Such exchanges as a rule 

 result in an increase of acreage. Finally, the act authorizing ex- 

 changes on the Whitman Forest has provided for obtaining title 

 to private lands whose owners take in return for the lands sur- 

 rendered an equal value of National Forest timber. As the exchange 

 policy already embodied in legislation is more widely applied con- 

 siderable increases of the National Forest area from this source are 

 probable. 



On the whole, the movement for additions to the Forests is evi- 

 dently growing stronger. This is due primarily to the demonstra- 

 tion of the public advantages realized through Government owner- 

 ship and administration of the present Forests. The movement for 

 establishing the Forests which culminated in 1909 preceded such a 

 demonstration. It was checked because of the very natural doubt 

 as to how the system would work in the long run, and because of 

 strong Western opposition to what it was feared would prove an 

 incubus upon local development. Because the western public has 

 become convinced through actual experience that the Forests are 

 not detrimental but beneficial to local development, a rising tide of 

 public sentiment in favor of additions to the Forests is now be- 

 ginning to make itself strongly felt. Evidence of this is recorded 

 by the attempts made to secure additions through acts of Congress, 

 in the seven States in which presidential additions are prohibited. 

 A number of acts have been passed making such additions. 



At first the primary purpose for which such legislation was sought 

 was watershed protection; but it was not long before projects for 

 a large number of additions were advocated for the sake of the 

 benefit of range regulation. Toward such additions, both in the ex- 

 cepted States and in those where the President may still act, the posi- 

 tion of the Forest Service has been that, where Government ownership 

 and administration of range lands not valuable for timber production 

 or water protection is desirable, legislation specifically authorizing 

 administration for range control should precede. One such act is now 

 before Congress. In the State of Nevada alone projects for proposed 

 additions of grazing lands coA'ering over 10,000,000 acres have been 

 adversely reported on by the Forest Service in the absence of direct 

 legislative sanction for including grazing lands as such in the Na- 

 tional Forests. Unquestionably, the movement for adding grazing 

 lands to the Forests would have gained much greater headway had 

 it not been held in check by the unwillingness of the Service to give 



