CONTROL OF FOREST DEVASTATION 473 



A brief discussion of the terms of the bill will clarify its principal 

 aims and the methods through which it proposes to control forest 

 devastation. Special interest attaches to the question of how its 

 various measures would work out in practice. The definitions in 

 Section 1 should be studied with care, for they are important when 

 interpreting the language used in the body of the bill. 



DIRECT CONTROL AND DECENTRALIZATION 



The crux of the bill, as compared to measures which advocate State 

 control, is that the Secretary of Agriculture is given the power and 

 authority to prevent forest devastation, and to prevent it at its very 

 source, namely, wherever and whenever forest crops are harvested on 

 commercial forest lands. That means direct National control over a 

 thing that is working direct Nation-wide injury. 



The Secretary is to establish such general standards for the harvest- 

 ing of forest crops as he shall deem necessary to keep forest lands 

 reasonably productive. To insure decentralization of administration, 

 the United States is to be divided into forest regions according to the 

 more general forest and economic conditions, and each of these regions 

 is to be in charge of a regional forester to whom the power and 

 authority of the Secretary is to be largely delegated. 



The regional forester, with the approval of the Secretary, is to 

 establish such standards and regulations for the harvesting of forest 

 crops as local conditions may warrant, such regulations to differ with 

 the many different forest and economic conditions within the region. 

 An organization of this nature removes the actual supervisory work 

 from Washington to the field, where it belongs. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Take, for examjile, the item of slash disposal. The Secretary might 

 establish a general standard for a forest region to the effect that all 

 slash must be disposed of in a way which would do a minimum amount 

 of damage to the timber and young growth left standing, while leaving 

 the cut-over lands, in a clean condition and as safe as possible from 

 fire. Under this general standard the regional forester would con- 

 sider the conditions in the various localities of his region and, if 

 desirable, could approve different methods of slash disposal for dif- 

 ferent localities, or even for different operations in the same locality. 

 In one case he might call for the piling and burning of slash in small, 

 compact heaps ; in another, the brush might be piled in wind-rows and 



