600 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



Service. It does not mean tackling the regulation of 100,000.000 acres 

 of forest at once, but organizing here an area and there an area as the 

 ever-widening circles of economic life come into contact with them. 

 Intensive forest surveys are ahead of rather than behind present needs. 

 The objection that the National Forests do not always control suffi- 

 ciently large units for sustained management should not present an 

 insurmountable obstacle, because co-operation of the public and private 

 owners in the management of natural producing units can be secured 

 in most cases on a basis satisfactory to both. . . . 



"The basis for each forest community would be the area within 

 whose radius an annual cut may be permanently maintained. A saw- 

 mill suitably located within the area and continuously supplied with 

 timber from the growth on land tributary to it would form the basis 

 of a sawmill community which could remain permanently in one loca- 

 tion. The logging camps which may have to change from time to time 

 would still form a part of the entire forest community organization. 

 The lumberjacks who are now in France engaged in logging and mill- 

 ing operations on government and private forests would be admirably 

 fitted for similar logging operations on the National Forests. Possibly 

 a great deal of the logging equipment which is the property of the 

 United States Government may be available upon the termination of 

 the war for this purpose. 



"The shortage of pulp and paper in this country and the presence of 

 a large supply of pulp timber available on the National Forests opens 

 another way for meeting the unemployment problem. The pulp indus- 

 try, more than the sawmill town, provides opportunities for creating 

 large village communities with healthful social life. 



"The utilization of the immense water powers on the public domain, 

 and particularly on the National Forests, possess wonderful possi- 

 bilities for creating new towns and rural industries, such, for instance, 

 as the pulp and paper industry and the electrification of large stretches 

 of the publicly controlled railroads. The same is true with regard to 

 the mining resources on the public domain, particularly in Alaska." 



Will it be possible to carry out such ambitious schemes as rapidly as 

 the needs of settling the returned soldiers demand? These needs are 

 immediate, while the proposed schemes require time. The suggestion 

 of community settlement does not. however, for that reason lose its 

 value and should be followed up with all vigor. 



B. E. F. 



