450 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



or other works or add to flood destructiveness. Those areas classified 

 as having a moderate watershed-protection influence are chiefly 

 woodland areas from which little water normally is delivered and the 

 erosion of which would not seriously damage lands other than the 

 forested areas themselves. A rather large area in northeastern 

 California supporting ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and woodland 

 species has been classed as having a slight influence on watershed- 

 protection values. Most of the area is level or of rolling topography. 

 Its soils, derived from volcanic rocks or dust, absorb precipitation 

 readily, and run-off and erosion are seldom serious. 



By far the most important requirement for overcoming the unsatis- 

 factory watershed-protection conditions in the Great Basin is control 

 of grazing. Timber cutting and fires also must be controlled. On 

 the 6,670,000 acres of forested lands within the national forests, where 

 grazing and timber cutting are regulated and fires are held to small 

 acreages, forest cover conditions are, in general, improving, and 

 erosion and extremely rapid run-off are being checked. 



There is nearly 9 million acres of public domain in the woodland, 

 mountain brush, and timber types within the basin. Most of this is 

 not now producing anywhere near the quantity of forage or protecting 

 vegetative cover that it could produce were it placed under public 

 administration. Conditions on private and State lands are little, if 

 any, better. Many areas in the woodland and lower-brush types have 

 been so badly overgrazed and burned that hardly anything is now 

 growing on them except downy bromegrass, an annual of very low 

 value from either a grazing or a watershed-protection standpoint. 

 On some areas of readily erosible soils where the herbaceous vegetation 

 has been practically destroyed it may be necessary to eliminate 

 grazing for a time in order to restore a suitable protective covering, 

 unless it is possible to find plants that can be established artificially 

 on these areas. On by far the greater percentage of the basin area, 

 however, adequate regulation of grazing will doubtless restore a 

 satisfactory watershed-protection cover. 



The State, county, or Federal Government should acquire about 

 1,800,000 acres of major-influence forest land, especially the critically 

 denuded areas at the heads of canyons, now in private ownership, 

 from which destructive floods have come. On these areas, in order 

 to restore the forest or herbaceous cover, it will be necessary to correct 

 present overgrazing and to seed or plant erosion-control plants. 

 Dams in the larger gullies and terraces seeded to grasses or other 

 plants on the steeper denuded slopes will aid in attaining control of 

 erosion in a reasonable period. Some 50,000 acres in this basin 

 should be planted to trees and an additional 200,000 acres reseeded 

 to grasses or other herbaceous erosion-control plants. 



COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN 



The Columbia River Basin (which as here considered includes only 

 lands east of the Cascade Divide) drains parts of Washington, Oregon, 

 Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, and also a part of 

 Canada, as is shown by figure 14. It is a region of valuable forest 

 growth, heavy snows, rapid spring run-off, large and valuable irriga- 

 tion developments, extensive power possibilities, great demands for 

 domestic water supplies, and large areas of easily erosible soils. 



