474 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of travel in them without crossing his own tracks. The dominant 

 attributes of such areas are : first, that visitors to them have to depend 

 exclusively on their own efforts for survival; and second, that they 

 preserve as nearly as possible the essential features of the primitive 

 environment. This means that all roads, settlements, and power 

 transportation are barred. But trails and temporary shelters, fea- 

 tures such as were common long before the advent of the white race, 

 are entirely permissible. 8 



It will not be possible to preserve primeval forest conditions through 

 the whole of any tract large enough to fulfill these requirements. 

 Indeed there may be some wilderness areas, as for instance in Maine, 

 where practically the entire tract will have been logged. The differ- 

 ence between primeval and wilderness areas is that the primeval area 

 exhibits primitive conditions of growth whereas the wilderness area 

 exhibits primitive methods of transportation. Of course wilderness 

 areas may contain within their boundaries much that is primeval. 

 Their chief function, however, is not to make possible contact with 

 the virgin forest but rather to make it possible to retire completely 

 from the modes of transportation and the living conditions of the 

 twentieth century. 



In 1930, the United States Forest Service adopted the policy of 

 reserving portions of its territory from road or residential develop- 

 ment. The Park Service had meanwhile enunciated the policy of 

 preserving most of its territory in a state of roadlessness. Under 

 these two administrative policies it will be possible to preserve an 

 adequate number of wilderness areas in the West. In the East the 

 situation is less favorable for except in New York and Minnesota the 

 potential winderness areas are almost exclusively controlled by States 

 or private owners having no policy of preserving wilderness con- 

 ditions. 



Wilderness areas in general will have to be sections of high moun- 

 tain country where commercial values are low, because practically 

 all of the more accessible and productive lands have already been 

 subjected to development. The great bulk of the remaining potential 

 wilderness areas could not possibly be managed for timber produc- 

 tion. Their inaccessibility and the low quality and slow growth of 

 their timber would render futile any hope of either a financial profit 

 or a sustained yield. The fact that most of the wilderness areas 

 will of necessity be low-grade land will make the cost of maintaining 

 them much less serious than their large acreage might lead one to 

 expect. Further, a great part of such land will need to be reserved 

 anyway, as protection forests for the control of stream flow and the 

 prevention of erosion. 



Cattle or sheep grazing is not incompatible with wilderness use. 

 In occasional instances storage reservoirs may be permissible. On a 

 number of wilderness areas, logging will be allowed, though in 

 most of these tracts the timber will be so remote that cutting op- 

 erations will not be feasible. For fire-protection purposes it will be 

 necessary in most parts of the West to permit telephone lines and 

 lookout cabins within wilderness areas and to permit airplane trans- 

 portation of men and equipment. Otherwise, wilderness areas should 

 be kept as much as possible in their pristine wildness. 



8 The Problem of the Wilderness, Robert Marshall, the Scientific Monthly, February 1930. 



