280 FORESTRY, LAND USE, AND NATIONAL PLANNING 



clusively by the public agencies. The high mountain areas should be 

 owned, protected, controlled, and operated by the public agencies, 

 especially at the headwaters of streams, where the chief function is to 

 protect the watersheds from fire and where the forest will probably 

 never attain great commercial importance. The better lands and 

 smaller holdings, such as the farmers' woodlots, tracts of land on 

 which timber may be quickly grown to supply the industries in our 

 more settled communities, should be left to private ownership. In 

 several states there has been some opposition to government ownership 

 of National Forests, notably in Georgia and Maryland. The federal 

 and state governments should own and control the forests where it is 

 not possible for private individuals or corporations to make forestry 

 a commercial success because of the long time required to grow a crop 

 of trees, the physical and financial hazards involved, and the generally 

 poorer locations of publicly owned forests. 



