138 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



This, of course, is largely because the national forests, which con- 

 tain 75 million acres of commercial forest land, were established in 

 the West mainly by Presidential decrees applied to large areas of 

 public domain, much of which contained virgin forests. The rela- 

 tively small acreage of national forests in the East is the result of 

 a movement originating in 1899. As the acreage in Federal owner- 

 ship was negligible, the movement depended almost entirely upon 

 purchase of land. About 4% million acres, largely cut-over lands, 

 have been purchased to date, which combined with about 2} million 

 acres reserved from the public domain or acquired by exchange 

 brings the total to over 7 million acres. The fact that the national 

 forests in the East were developed in this way is one of the main 

 reasons for the relatively high proportion of restocking and non- 

 restocking and the low proportion of saw- timber lands in public 

 ownership in these regions. Effective consolidation of the existing 

 units will require the further purchase of approximately 7% million 



Federally Owned 

 or Managed "' 



State. 



County and 

 Municipal 



15 3O 45 6O 75 9O 



Million Acres 



FIGURE 10. Distribution of public ownership of commercial forest area of the United States. 



acres, but the situation requires many new units' and a much greater 

 area under public control. 



Indian reservations include some 7 million acres of federally 

 managed commercial forest land, and the public domain still contains 

 most of the remaining 6 million acres federally owned. These, like 

 the national forests, are mostly in the West. 



Each forest region contains some State, county, or municipally 

 owned forest land. It will be noted that of the 11 million acres of 

 this land, more or less, nearly 4 million are in the Lake region. 



Public ownership, broadly speaking, is the most stable type of 

 forest-land ownership and in this respect, therefore, the most favor- 

 able for the continuous production of forest crops, or in other words 

 for sustained yield. There is not the same incentive as in the case 

 of the private owner for immediate as opposed to deferred returns. 

 Long-time policies of management once adopted are not likely to be 

 upset at the instance of a single individual. The indirect and col- 

 lective forest benefits to the public at large may be more logically and 

 effectively provided for in the management. Though by no means 

 all of it, the bulk of the publicly owned forest lands are either now 



