A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 67 



acquisition lagged so seriously behind the program recommended as to 

 jeopardize the public interest, or in case of the continued failure of 

 private owners to keep or to bring their lands into productivity. 



PUBLIC OWNERSHIP 



Public ownership is the only remaining alternative for chief reliance 

 in meeting national requirements. To be thoroughly effective, 

 however, public ownership would require a program of such propor- 

 tions that it would rank among the largest that have ever been 

 undertaken by the American people. But under normal conditions 

 the American people have never allowed themselves to be frightened 

 out of a necessary program by mere size and cost. 



ITS POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS 



Some of the more conspicuous limitations or objections to large- 

 scale public ownership must in fairness be pointed out in connection 

 with the recommendation for its adoption. 



Both necessary legislation and actual acquisition, even though 

 carried through at unprecedented rates, would require time, and the 

 urgency of acquiring large areas to prevent further depletion of 

 existing growing stocks and further forest devastation as well as to 

 speed up forest restoration is very great. 



Large public holdings would reduce the tax base and hence the 

 revenue of local governmental units, despite the fact that some of this 

 reduction would be apparent rather than real, as on lands now or 

 likely to become delinquent. It would be necessary to replace tax 

 income in amounts sufficient to maintain local governments in 

 desirable form by some such device as the return of 25 percent of 

 gross receipts to national-forest counties. 



Where lands which are going out of agricultural use are involved, 

 acquisition might tend to displace the agricultural population over 

 considerable areas. 



Large scale acquisition, although a continuation of established pol- 

 icies, would probably encounter opposition because of its magnitude. 



The total cost would be high, and unless clearly recognized as a 

 long-term capital investment and financed accordingly would en- 

 counter the prevailing opposition to increased current costs of 

 government. 



One of the chief justifications for main reliance on public ownership 

 in the future rather than private ownership as in the past is the extent 

 to which the most serious forest problems of today center in or have 

 grown out of private ownership of forest lands. 



That of unstable ownership. 



That of forest devastation and deterioration and depreciated forest 

 capital. 



That of excessive investments, overproduction of forest products, 

 and economic losses to the forest industries. 



That of economic and social losses to the public. 



That of the lag of constructive measures to keep forest lands 

 productive. 



That of balancing the national timber budget. 



That of abandoned agricultural lands suitable only for timber 

 growing. 



