INFLL'EXCES OF THE NATIONAL FORESTS 403 



has to a large extent been drawn out of tlie remote and inaccessible 

 sections of the mountains and concentrated along the lower coves and 

 valleys where roads have been built and where industries dependent 

 upon forest products have developed. Towns and villages have grown 

 up and some of the valleys now have railroads. The influence which 

 ■chiefly has operated to bring about this result has been the assembling 

 of the small mountain farms into large timber tracts. The mountain 

 farmer sold his tract, including both forest and farmland, to the 

 timber company and went down the cove to work in the sawmill, on the 

 railroad, or in some other industry which has entered the region. 



A change of this sort should not be objected to by any one. It has 

 brought industries into the region, made money plentiful, given op- 

 portunity for employment. It has made it possible for the people to 

 live in towns or villages where they can have roads, schools, and 

 churches, where they can mingle together in social affairs and maintain 

 intercourse with the outside world. 



The establishment of a million and a quarter acres of National 

 Forests has for one thing simply made more complete this industrial 

 and social transition. There are, however, certain additional results 

 of Government ownership which we may well observe. The time is 

 too short as yet to measure the full efifect of the changes which are 

 taking place as result of the Government ownership, but already we 

 may note some of them. They merely indicate the more extensive 

 results which may be expected if the same transition in ownership 

 •occurs widely in this region. These results so far as they concern the 

 lands which are purchased are bold and outstanding when the con- 

 ditions are contrasted with the conditions obtaining on private lands. 

 Less distinct, but still easily discerned, are the influences of Govern- 

 ment ownership which extend beyond the lands actually acquired to 

 the lands still in private ownership and to other communities of the 

 general region. 



We may group under four heads the influences at present discern- 

 ible, as follows: (i) on local population. (2) on local improvements, 

 (3) on local industries which use wood as a material, and, (4) on 

 forest management, not only on the lands themselves but upon the 

 larger region of which they form a part. 



In considering first the influence of Government ownership on the 

 local population we note in some localities, as already indicated, a 

 decrease in population due to the acquisition of lands occupied by 

 mountain farmers. In many instances farmers take the money paid 

 them for their lands and go elsewhere and buy farms or else become 



