252 Forestry Quarterly 



of macadam or concrete, have their own peculiarities but agree 

 in requiring attention in proportion to the quality of first con- 

 struction and the amount of traffic over them. Concerning roads 

 and road engineering and costs we are rapidly building up a 

 fund of information, even for forested conditions. The forester 

 may expect much expert assistance from the engineers in his 

 road problems. For the other classes of improvements he will 

 probably have to work out his own salvation. 



In general, it is probably safe to figure that a depreciation 

 of 10 per cent a year takes place in the whole improvement system 

 and that the forester in charge may as well begin to organize his 

 affairs so as to take care of his maintenance work. 



Where the improvement funds are limited to fixed sums having 

 no relation whatever to needs or values, as in the appropriations 

 made for the National Forests, the situation is serious. The Ser- 

 vice received, for its approximate 160 million acres, in 1907 and 

 1908, $500,000, in 1909 and 1910, $600,000, in 1911, $375,000, in 

 1913, $500,000, and in 1913 and 1914, $400,000, with an additional 

 sum since 1913, available for roads and trails, amounting to 

 10 per cent of the gross income from the National Forests. This 

 amounted, in 1914, to about $335,000, giving a total annual fund 

 currently available for improvements, of about $500,000 to $600,- 

 000 a year. The expenditure of this fund is limited in various 

 ways, as in pro-rating the 10 per cent item to the States in accord- 

 ance with the income from the National Forests within the States 

 and in confining it to roads and trails. The amount to be ex- 

 pended in the construction of a Ranger Station house is fixed at 

 $600. The direct appropriation is distributed to the dififerent 

 Districts in the discretion of the Forester, and to the diflFerent 

 Forests in the discretion of the District Foresters. The individ- 

 ual Forest, therefore, is unable to anticipate within more than 

 very vague limits, what its improvement fund for the next, or 

 succeeding years, will be. This is hardly a fault in the Service 

 organization, but rather an inherent difficulty in the situation. 

 But the individual Supervisor is, as a result, unable to develop 

 a plan with much success. The sadly inadequate total fund avail- 

 able is of course the great difficulty. The Forester's Reports show 

 this to have varied between 0.055 and 0.310 cent per acre per 

 year. The actual total should probably be a small fraction higher 



