A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 139 



subject to conservative forestry practice, or are assured of such treat- 

 ment when cutting shall take place. The main exception to this, of 

 course, is the forest land which still remains in the public domain. 

 Another important exception is the Oregon and California land grants 

 upon which the timber under existing laws is being cut with little or 

 no regard to maintaining the forest productivity of the land. (See 

 section " Public Domain and Other Federal Forest Land.") 



Public ownership, often accompanied by restrictions in private 

 forest-land management, has long been accepted in many countries 

 as the chief safeguard against the impairment of the sustained produc- 

 tivity and economic values of the forest resources of those countries. 

 For the United States as a whole, the 20 percent publicly owned 

 forest land is decidedly less than the proportion in the most of the 

 older European countries. For example, in Germany 52 percent, in 

 France 35 percent, in Sweden 24 percent, in Austria 28 percent, in 

 Italy 35 percent, and in Switzerland 72 percent are publicly owned. 

 The contrast, of course, is much greater for the eastern United States, 

 where public forests include only 4 percent of the total commercial 

 forest land. 



Public forests are, generally speaking, a recognition of the difficulties 

 experienced by private ownership in coping with the many perplexing 

 problems involved in the practice of forestry. Obviously, unless 

 greatly expanded, public ownership can not replace but rather can 

 serve only to supplement timber production on privately owned forest 

 lands. Publicly owned forest lands, in addition to their part in cur- 

 rent and sustained yield production of timber products, serve as an 

 assurance of timber supplies available in quantity to meet possible 

 future emergencies. 



It is not within the province of this section to outline a policy or 

 program for the expansion of public forest lands from the standpoint 

 of timber use but rather to present some of the outstanding aspects 

 of the forest-land and land-ownership situation as it exists. It may 

 be appropriate to say in passing, however, that the preparation of a 

 public-ownership program will necessarily give consideration to the 

 evident opportunity for large extension of public ownership in the 

 eastern United States especially. However logical it might appear to 

 rely upon public ownership as the main solution of our timber supply 

 and other forest-land problems, it will be necessary to consider the 

 practical difficulties, financial and otherwise, that would be faced in 

 taking the bulk of the Nation's forest lands into public ownership. 

 As a practical proposition, therefore, it^would appear that a national 

 forestry program should involve material extension of public owner- 

 ship, by States, counties, and municipalities as well as by the Federal 

 Government, but that it must also rely in important part upon the 

 wise and conservative management of a large area in private owner- 

 ship, both industrial and farm woodland. 



THE PROTECTIVE FUNCTION OF FOREST LAND 



Water is a basic resource of such widely varied necessity and use- 

 fulness in our individual and national life that its value can hardly be 

 measured. Water for domestic and municipal use, navigation on our 

 rivers and lakes, the operation of hydroelectric plants, and^irrigatipn 

 are outstanding examples. For these and many other purposes easily 



