482 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



with very heavy timber. Most of the agricultural land left in the 

 forests is in small scattered units. 



The larger areas of agricultural land still covered with heavy tim- 

 ber are mostly situated in the forests of northern Montana, Idaho, 

 Washington, and Oregon. These areas will be cut over as rapidly as 

 possible and then opened to entry. On portions of the above-men- 

 tioned land the soil is exceedingly good and should make productive 

 farms. 



Another group of lands of agricultural possibilities occurs in the 

 semiarid Southwest. There are some bodies of land at the base of the 

 mountains which are suited topograiDhically and by soil for agricul- 

 ture, but water is entirely lacking. They can hardly be called agri- 

 cultural at present, for water is quite as important an element in soil 

 as nitrogen or any other chemical constituent. If water can be 

 found these lands will be promptly classified as agricultural and 

 opened to entry. 



The rest of the agricultural land in the forests is imcsmall units. 

 The home seeker finds that the best open meadows and swales, the 

 best flats at the confluence of streams, and the benches presenting the 

 easiest conditions of cultivation have already been for the most part 

 taken up. There remain still many scattered plots less accessible to 

 existing roads, higher in the mountains and with less favorable 

 climate, which are susceptible of cultivation. But the prospective 

 settler must not expect to find a Sacramento Valley in the high 

 Sierras nor a Willamette Valley in the high Cascades. 



The statement has been frequently made by opponents of national 

 forestry that settlers are leaving the coimtry for Canada because 

 the national forests are practically closed to settlement. In the first 

 place, the national forests are not practically closed to settlement, so 

 far as there is agricultural land in them ; but the real reason settlers 

 go to Canada is because there is more vacant land there of the kind 

 they seek. A man seeking wheatland and flat farming prefers Cana- 

 dian land of this character to a mountainous tract with uncertain con- 

 ditions of transportation. It is the difference in conditions that takes 

 men to Canada. Agricultural lands simply do not exist in the 

 national forests which can compete in quantity and quality with the 

 Canadian wheat fields, just as no settler would go up 6,000 feet in 

 the Rocky Mountains for a strip of aspen land if he could get a free 

 farm in North Dakota. 



The total amount of agricultural land in the national forests not 

 yet taken up will aggregate about 4,000,000 acres, of which a large 

 amount is under heavy timber. The statement that there are many 

 million acres of agricultural lands in the forests not under mer- 

 chantable timber is contrary to the facts. While the exact figures 

 will not be available until the classification of lands now in process 

 has been completed, the data above given are based on caref-ul esti- 

 mates by the individual forest supervisors, from their knowledge of 

 local conditions, and are liberal. One illustration may be taken from 

 the work done by the Forest Service and Idaho Land Board in their 

 classification of State school land in Idaho, looking to an exchange 

 with the Government. The school- sections are scattered evenly 

 through the forest. So far, 375.000 acres has been jointly classified, 

 and only 1 per cent has been founi to be nontimbered agricultural 

 land. 



