Improvement Systems Cost 241 



to it for their essential improvements. The forest must help. 

 But there is not enough income for both and the funds are 

 expended outside the forests. 



When the forester takes charge, he is more than likely to find 

 a small mileage of good roads and trails and a large mileage of 

 poor or deserted ones. One of his first interests will be the in- 

 spection and mapping of all existing improvements and the 

 recording of their history, condition, present utility, and probable 

 future utility in a real system of improvements for his forest. 

 He is likely to find that a very large portion of the roads and 

 trails actually in use are most miserably located for permanent use 

 and development. This naturally follows from the way in which 

 they have come into being. Trapper A once followed up a ridge 

 with a blazed trap line. Prospector B, with his pack horse, found 

 the blazes and followed them, leaving horse tracks and chopping 

 behind him. Prospector C follows B, also doing a little chopping 

 and clearing. Traffic follows the blazed line without respect to 

 grade, footing or anything but objective points. Continual piece- 

 meal work, occasional cut-ofTs which have become obvious, the 

 patching of swamp holes, the development of residences and 

 camps and all manner of projects, all with relation to the exist- 

 ing trail, finally lead to road construction closely following the 

 old accidental trail location. This is logical enough since the 

 abandonment of the old way and the location and construction of 

 a new one would generally be prohibitive in cost. The invest- 

 ment required for new and satisfactory improvements looks pro- 

 hibitive and the old improvements are patched up again. While 

 such a situation is logical enough for the early settler and pros- 

 pector, the results are unfortunate for the forester, who operates 

 on a radically diiTerent basis. 



It may often happen that the first competent forester in charge 

 of a forest has been preceded by others who have had no com- 

 petent notion of improvement systems as against improvement 

 projects. In such cases it is likely that there will have been indi- 

 vidual projects undertaken or completed so as to tie into the exist- 

 ing old system but so as to prove of little or no advantage in an 

 adequately conceived plan for the entire tract. The temptation to 

 postpone the introduction of the final improvement plan or to 



