148 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



GAME AND WILD LIFE 



The great bulk of forest land is capable of producing game and wild 

 life. However, the condition of the forest cover is an important 

 factor in the extent and character of the food supply. Cutting opera- 

 tions usually lead to increased growth of shrubs and herbage, thus 

 providing a greater abundance and variety of food than is to be found 

 in dense forests. In general, the protection of forest land from fire, 

 and the application of desirable silvicultural measures in the develop- 

 ment and use of the timber resource, contribute to the welfare of wild 

 life. The character of the ownership of the land is also an important 

 factor as it affects access to the land by the public, and the possibilities 

 for effective correlation of wild life and land management. 



RANGE USE 



This use is exercised over more than half the forest land in the 

 United States. As a rule, grazing may be harmonized satisfactorily 

 with other major forest-land uses. In some instances it should be 

 temporarily suspended during forest regeneration. At all times it 

 should be exercised conservatively to guard against damage to the 

 forest-protection values and against depletion of the forage resource 

 itself. On certain intensive protection areas it should probably be 

 excluded altogether. 



Forest-range conditions are far from uniformly satisfactory. On 

 the unregulated public as well as much of the privately owned forest 

 land of the West, and on much of the forested pasture land of the East, 

 grazing has been exercised with little regard for the forage resource 

 itself or for the values of the forest land for other purposes. 



Any one of these major uses is essential to national welfare. In the 

 aggregate they give some conception of the great importance of forest 

 land. It is of the utmost importance that forest land should serve 

 these uses effectively and also that these uses be maintained, devel- 

 oped, and harmonized in order that no considerable part of so fruitful 

 a resource need lie idle and unproductive. 



The practice of forestry in the broad sense then means much more 

 than the mere production of timber. It includes the management of 

 forest lands, usually with timber production as one of the major uses, 

 but not an exclusive one. It means the management of forest lands 

 to secure a maximum of coordination and combined effectiveness in all 

 these uses. 



AGRICULTURAL-LAND ABANDONMENT 



The forest-land situation is by no means static. The process of 

 converting forest land to farm land is still going on, particularly in the 

 western regions where the removal of virgin timber from a land of 

 favorable soil and climate invites settlement. It is roughly estimated 

 that some 2 million acres should be deducted from the commercial 

 forest-land acreage to account for such present and prospective 

 conversion. 



While this process is continuing on a small scale in the West the 

 opposite process agricultural-land abandonment is taking place on 

 a major scale in the regions of the Eastern United States. The future 

 progress and the net effects of these transitions are not susceptible of 

 refined determination. They are the result of complex and changing 



