HARDWOOD RECORD 



The Status of Forestry in the United States 



(This ai-ticio, wliic-h was taken from a circular 

 Ijy Treadwell rievilaiuT, issued l)y tlie Foresl 

 Service, is conliiiued from tiio Ilrcono of Jau. 



State Forestry 



111 comparison with tlie great need dis- 

 closed by a study of present forest conditions, 

 the states have clone exceedingly little toward 

 the solution of the forest problem. 

 LtxES OF State Action 



The past lines of state action fall natural- 

 ly under the following heads: {a) Protection 

 of the forest against trespass; (?>) protec- 

 tion of the forest against fire; (c) the pro- 

 motion of forestry by various means; (d) 

 the establishment of state forests and forest 

 organizations charged with their care. 

 Thespass Laws 



In general, the state laws against forest 

 trespass are sufficient, but they are not en- 

 forced, and never have been, in any state. 

 The non-resident forest owner is frequently 

 so great a loser from trespass that he tinds 

 it dieaper to cut the timber before it has 

 reached financial maturity — that is, before it 

 is the best business to cut it. 



FiKE Protective Systems 



Eighteen states have organized tire pro- 

 tective systems. These are: Alabama, 

 CaMfornia, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, 

 Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigau, Minne- 

 .sota, Xew Hampshire, New Jersey, New 

 York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, 

 Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. , 



It is interesting to note that the tire laws 

 and amendments considered by experts the 

 most satisfactory have been enacted within 

 the past five years (California, Oregon, 

 Jlaryland, Washingtca, New Jersey, Iil:ilio, 

 Jlinnesota, New York). 



Nearly all of the states have long had 

 legal provisions against setting fire to forests 

 and waste land. In recent years, however, 

 such provisions liave been made more specific 

 and efl'ective. 



Tiie following improvements in existing 

 tire protective systems are urgently required: 



(1) Greater independence of the head offi- 

 icr and his direct responsibility to the gov- 

 ernor. Tt is a distinct advantage to have a 

 state firewarden who devotes his entire lime 

 to fire protection. He should be appointed 

 from a nonpolitical state civil-service list 

 and bold office during efficient service. His 

 duties should include the personal superin- 

 tendence and .instruction of the local over- 

 wardens, who would be his own deputies; the 

 appointment and removal of local officers 

 when this is consistent with state and local 

 policy; the auditing of firewardens' accounts; 

 and the enforcement of fire laws against 

 offenders. This arrangement is in the direc- 

 tion of state rather than local enforcement 

 of the laws. The New Jersey provisions 

 more nearly meet these requirements than 

 do perhaps any of the other state forest-fire 

 protective laws. 



(-) Greater independence of local fire- 

 wardens. There is at present a sound ten- 

 dency away from adding the duties of a fire- 

 warden to the duties of existing offices. Fire- 

 wardens should give all of their time to their 

 work and receive pay for it. 



(3) The extension of the plan, followed 

 in part in California, Idaho, Oregon, and 

 Washington, of appointing employees of 

 jirivate forest owners as state firewardens or 

 r;ingers, the state delegating the powers of 

 peace officers to such appointees and the 

 forest owners bearing the added expenses, 

 if any. 



(4) A very great extension of patrol. 

 Efficient patrol is the first essential of ef- 

 fective protection. The great object of all 

 ]irotective systems is to prevent fires, and 

 jiatrol alone will prevent them. It is, there- 

 fore, good business for the state to jjay for 

 patrol on its own holdings; for the same 

 reason patrol is the best kind of business 

 for private owners, who should be, and usual- 

 ly are, entirely willing to bear their share 

 of the burden, as they are required to do in 

 Nova Scotia, may do in California, and will 

 do in AVisconsin if a bill that has been pre- 

 sented is enacted into law. State rangers 

 under the state forester or firewarden should 

 be permanently maintained by the state, 

 assisted by the voluntary or compulsory co- 

 operation of private owners. Legal pro- 

 vision should be made for the appointment 

 of employees of private owners as state fire- 

 wardens, witli the powers of such officials. 

 Patrol may be limited to the dangerous 

 season, except that district firewardens should 

 patrol at all seasons. Where no merchant- 

 able timber remains on cut-over lands, and 

 tlie owners of such lands are consequently 

 iudifl'erent to fire, there will not be effective 

 local support or sufficient funds to maintain 

 patrol. In such cases the state should acquire 

 the land for state forest purposes and i)ro- 

 tect it by state patrol. The results would 

 encourage the practice of forestry by private 

 owners. 



(5) Better provision for inspection. 



(R) Further provision for cooperation be- 

 tween state and federal governments in the 

 states having National Forests. At present 

 the National Forest officers may be appointed 

 state firewardens in California and Oregon. 

 In order fully to protect the National For- 

 ests it is frequently of great importance to 

 extinguish threatening fires outside of but 

 adjacent to the forests, and it is always 

 desirable to prevent such fires. In the states 

 above mentioned federal forest officers re- 

 ceive the needed state authority on state 

 lands adjacent to the forests, but no pro- 

 vision is made for reimbursing the govern- 

 ment for expenses incurred in the protection 

 of such state lands. Should such provision 

 be made by the states, so as to permit Na- 

 tional Forest officers acting as state fire- 



wardens to incur such expenses as may now 

 be incurred by other state firewardens, the 

 eoiiperative arrangement would be yet more 

 advantageous than it now is for both stats 

 and National forests. 



(7) Provision for the taxation of forest 

 owners on an acreage basis, the fund so 

 raiseil to be devoted to forest patrol. This 

 plan is successfully followed in Nova Scotia, 

 and a law containing similar provisions was 

 introduced last winter in the legislature of 

 AVinconsin. 



The Promotiox op Forestry 



State laws to encourage forestry have thus 

 far been chiefly of two kinds: Those creat- 

 ing forest commissions and, of late, state 

 loresters, and those offering inducements, in 

 tlie form of liounties or exemption from 

 taxes, to |ilant forest trees or to maintain 

 forests. The latter have had some slight 

 educational value, but they have in most 

 cases been poorly framed and they have 

 usually been declared unconstitutional. Tliey 

 have led neither to tlie planting nor to the 

 preservation of forests. The state forest 

 commissions and state foresters, on the other 

 hand, have very greatly advanced the cause 

 of forestry by gathering and distributing in- 

 formation, advising the government or legis- 

 lature of the state, and cooperating with 

 private forest owners in the care of forest 

 tracts and woodlots and in the establishment 

 and care of forest plantations. 



Cooperation with private owners in forest 

 management and forest jjlanting is of para- 

 mount importance. The private owners must 

 be met on their own ground. Until the re- 

 sources of real cooperation are exhausted it 

 is not time to consider measures for bringing 

 forestry to pass by drastic legislation. 



Forest taxation is one of the insistent 

 problems involved in the encouragement of 

 forestry by the state. At present private 

 forests are in many cases practically taxed 

 out of existence. Our forests are doubly 

 discriminated against in the tax laws: First, 

 because they belong to the class of real 

 )iropcrty, which is already overburdened, and, 

 second, because they are assessed on the 

 basis of sale value instead of on the basis 

 of income. Such a state of affairs encour- 

 ages reckless -cutting, after which the dev- 

 astated forest is too commonly allowed to 

 revert to the state. 



Public sentiment has been awakened to the 

 need of a substitute for the general property 

 tax as applied to forest lands. Economists 

 have for years recognized the fact that the 

 burden to which such lands are subject under 

 ]iresent tax systems is very unjust, and 

 desultory attempts have been made to effect 

 a remedy. As was said, these attempts, 

 which have usually taken the form of partial 

 or entire exemption of forests from taxation, 

 of rebates of taxes, or of bounties to the 

 owners, have not been very successful. 



