A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 9 



Approximately 10 million acres are cut over annually, and of this 

 perhaps one twentieth is consciously cut under more or less intensive 

 silvicultural principles. The total area planted is about 1,900,000 

 acres and is now being increased by 153,000 acres a year. 



Out of a total area of 334 million acres of forest lands grazed some 

 kind of management plans are in effect or are under preparation for 

 about 85 million. For perhaps 40 million the plans are intensive. 



About 8 million acres are under intensive management for recrea- 

 tional purposes, not including the areas mthin the national forests. 



* Protection of forest wild life on the national forests and parks and 

 in several of the States, particularly in the Northeast, has permitted 

 game to increase materially in numbers during the last few years. 

 Management plans are a development of the last decade. Fish have 

 been introduced into forest waters in which they did not previously 

 occur. Material progress has been made in the artificial propagation 

 of fish and the development of fish-hatchery technique. 



More or less intensively organized fire protection, at an annual cost 

 in 1932 of $14,475,000, has been put into effect on a total of 321 

 million acres, of which about 290 million is commercial forest land. 



Forest insect control has been developed for bark beetles in the 

 West, and gypsy and brown-tail moths in the East. Annual expendi- 

 tures for control by all agencies on some 80 million acres is estimated 

 at $2,100,000. 



Organized control of forest tree diseases is largely confined to the 

 white pine blister rust on an area of some 10 or 12 million acres. 

 This, with other small eradication jobs, is done at a cost of about 

 $1,000,000 annually. 



Research by all agencies now covers practically the entire field of 

 forestry and called for an expenditure of about $6,315,000 in 1932. 



The first college giving instruction leading to a professional degree 

 in forestry was established in 1898. There are now 24. The number 

 of trained professional foresters has reached a total of about 4,500 

 and is being increased by about 400 annually. 



Total expenditures in 1932 by all agencies in the entire field of 

 forestry were about $43,475,000 (fig. 1). To this the Federal Gov- 

 ernment contributed about $26,965,000, the States and their subdivi- 

 sions $10,650,000, private owners $5,060,000, and quasi-public agencies 

 $800,000. The expenditure of public agencies were, therefore, 

 nearly 90 percent of the total. 



Public regulation of private lands, centering mainly in the use of 

 fire, has been gradually building up in legislative provisions in many 

 States. Enforcement varies from States in which it is thoroughly 

 effective to those in which nothing is attempted. A part of the value 

 of the fire legislation has been in the reduction of public carelessness 

 with fire on public forests. 



Public aid designed both to meet public obligations and interest 

 and to stimulate private ownership began as early as 1885 and has 

 developed much more rapidly under the stimulus of Federal legisla- 

 tion, particularly that of 1911 and 1924. 



The greatest contribution of public aid to private effort has been 

 in putting under fire protection half of the privately owned forest 

 land needing it. In various forms it is partly responsible at least for 

 stimulating other measures to insure productivity on about 25 million 

 acres of private land, including the planting of 1.2 million acres. 



