A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 465 



TABLE 2. Recreational use of national parks and national forests 



1 Exclusive of the urban Hot Springs National Park. 



2 The national-forest and national-park figures are not comparable because in recent years about three 

 quarters of the national-forest visitors have been transients who merely drove through the forest area, while 

 virtual'y all of the national-park visitors came for more protracted sojourns. The 1931 Forest Service figure 

 which would be comparable to the Park Service record for the same year would be the 8,073,917 hotel and 

 resort guests, summer-home guests, campers, and picnickers. 



There is no reason to suppose that the general trends on Federal 

 lands are different from those on other recreational territory. Con- 

 sequently, it is fair to state that recreational use of forest lands is 

 growing with tremendous acceleration. 



THE FUTURE VOLUME 



Is there reason to believe that this present growth in recreational 

 use will continue? What factors are likely to inhibit and to stimulate 

 future demand for forest recreation? 



The most serious of the possible inhibiting factors seem to be com- 

 mercial exploitation and fires, which threaten to deplete severely the 

 beauty of many recreational areas. There can be no doubt that the 

 greatest attraction of the forests is their natural beauty. If this is 

 not adequately safeguarded, unquestionably millions who now delight 

 above all else in the loveliness of the forest will forsake it for some 

 other source of recreation. 



Another of the possible inhibiting factors may readily be observed 

 at any popular camp ground over a holiday. Here one sees swarms 

 of tourists who not only destroy, by their mere numbers, the very 

 isolation which was one reason for their journey to the forest, but 

 also kill the ground vegetation around the camp site and tramp down 

 the soil so compactly as even to kill many of the trees. This type 

 of destruction has its remedy, like the destruction resulting from 

 commercial exploitation, but unless the remedies are applied these 

 factors will definitely tend to decrease the recreational use of the 

 forests. 



Factors which may be expected to stimulate recreational use of 

 the forest are : 



(1) Increasing population. The predictions of reputable biome- 

 tricians place the eventual saturated population of the United States 

 between 145 million and 185 million. This represents an increase 

 over present population of between 20 and 50 percent. It would in 

 all likelihood result in a corresponding increase in the number of 

 recreational seekers, even if no other factors were involved. 



(2) Shorter working hours. Whereas the average working week in 

 1929 ranged from 40 to well over 60 hours, with a mean, for all in- 



