6 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



STATE AID 



All of the States except Arizona, Missouri, and South Dakota now 

 give some or all of their forest landowners more or less aid. Expendi- 

 tures for this purpose reached nearly $5,500,000 in 1932. 



Aid, and more specifically in fire control, is in fact the chief job of 

 nearly all the State organizations. Expenditures for fire reach nearly 

 60 percent of the total for all aid. Those for fire, disease, and insect 

 control reach nearly 90 percent, but aid is also extended in planting, 

 research, and advice to forest landowners, mainly farmers. 



More than 80 percent of the expenditures for aid are concentrated 

 in the New England^ Middle Atlantic, and Lake States. 



The States maintain all but 3 of the 25 forest schools of collegiate 

 grade in the country on which they are expending about $925,000 

 annually. They are training more than 95 percent of the professional 

 foresters. 



STATE FORESTS AND PARKS 



The entire area of State forests, now nearly 4% million acres, is 

 under some degree of administration, mainly fire protection. About 

 1 million acres are under timber management plans. Nearly 5} 

 million, including some State land not having formal legal status as 

 State forests, are managed with reference to future timber production. 

 About 75 percent of the total area of State forests is in Pennsylvania, 

 Minnesota, and Michigan. 



State parks total nearly 2,700,000 acres, four fifths in New York 

 under a high degree of administration for recreational use. 



State-owned lands not in either formally designated State forests 

 or parks aggregate nearly 6,150,000 acres, more than half in Wash- 

 ington, Minnesota, and Idaho. Most are under protection; in some 

 the cutting of timber is regulated. Since these lands have no clearly 

 defined legal status as either forests or parks, the area as a whole is in 

 a twilight zone. 



Nearly 90 percent of the organized and formally designated State 

 forests and parks are in the Northern, Middle Atlantic, and Lake 

 States, and more than 85 percent of all State-owned forest land is in 

 the Atlantic and Lake States and the Pacific Northwest. 



The holdings of the wealthy Middle Atlantic and New England 

 States have been acquired largely by purchase, those of the Lake 

 States through tax delinquency and Federal grants, and those of the 

 Northwest from Federal grants, under stimulus of the national forests. 

 Elsewhere State forests are practically nonexistant. 



An additional 2% million acres is definitely in process of acquisition 

 for State forests, nine tenths in Minnesota and Wisconsin. A very 

 large but unknown area is reverting to State ownership through tax 

 delinquency. Michigan, New York within the forest-preserve 

 counties, Virginia, and South Carolina have made legal provision for 

 the consolidation of suitable delinquent lands into State forests. The 

 New York 20-year program for the acquisition of submarginal agri- 

 cultural lands and their reforestation is unique in its anticipation of 

 this problem. 



In general the creation and administration of State forests and 

 parks have been given secondary consideration. They are more 

 difficult to handle than fire control, the principal State activity. 



