372 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



lie for efficiont work. Wliere fires were in the past regarded as inev- 

 ital^le and little attention was paid to them, immediate public 

 attention is now fociisf^d upon them as soon as they break out, and 

 the Forest Service is expected to l)ring them under control at once. 

 This is shown in the attention which newsj)aj)eis now give to foiest 

 fii'es — an attention which woukl not have been thought worth wliile 

 until very recently. As a means of awakening public sentiment and 

 creating a realization of the fire danger and the possibility of keeping 

 it downi the terrible fires of the summer of 1010 exerted an influence 

 which it would be hard to overestimate. This increased sensitive- 

 ness of the public mind on the fire question is one of the most helpful 

 evidences of progress. It means, of course, a dimunition of careless- 

 ness, better laws, and more general efforts to ccmbat fires everywhere. 

 The Forest Service can well afford to have the community critical of 

 its work for the sake of the support to the general cause of fire pro- 

 tection which this state of the public mind gives. 



Reforestation. 



Approximately 15,000,000 acres of National Poorest lands which are 

 capable of producing timber and valuable cliicfly for that purpose 

 have been denuded of their original tree growth. These lands are 

 not adapted to agriculture and possess but slight value for grazing. 

 In their present condition they are ])ractically unproductive barrens. 



It is probable that one-half of tliis area will reforest naturally 

 through the reseeding of burns and the encroachment of tree growth 

 upon natural gaps, parks, grass, and brush lands. Natural extension of 

 the Forest on such areas is progressing at an estimated rate of 150,000 

 acres annually. The mere protection of this increasing acreage of 

 young forest from fire, without other measures, will greatly increase 

 the value of the National Forests and their future productive capacity. 



The remaining half of the denuded area, 7,500,000 acres, must be 

 reforested by artificial methods. Aside from this land, which is 

 unquestionably adapted to growdng timber and useful to the country 

 primarily for this purpose only, there is a large aggregate area of 

 grass lands scattered mostly in small patches throughout the Forests 

 or above timber line, portions of which it ma}^ be found desirable and 

 practicable to stock with trees. 



Aside from the areas denuded through burns or other natural 

 agencies, some 90,000 acres cut over annually under National Forest 

 timber sales will reforest promptly by natural seeding through the 

 careful selection of the trees to be cut with this end in view. 



The problem in the broad is the most productive use of National 

 Forest lands which have little or no value for other purposes, to the 

 end that the Forests may serve most fully the objects for which they 

 were created. It is directly related to accomplishing the largest 

 possibilities of many Forests in their function as conservers of stable 

 streamfiow. 



The duty of the Forest Service to put the denuded areas which will 

 not be reforested naturally into a condition of productivity and use- 

 fulness is clear. Under the semiarid conditions prevailing on many 

 National Forests this work involves uncertainties and unsolved 

 problems. In the National Forest regions artificial reforestation was 

 an untried field when the Forest Service entered it. It therefore had 

 to develop its own practice in the face of a great variety of condi- 



