A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 481 



Erocure fuel for campers, and he will clean up any mess they may 

 mve behind and repair any damage that can be repaired. 



The problem of use without destruction is in many respects even 

 more critical in the case of primeval areas. The only reason it is not 

 in all respects more critical is that fewer people visit primeval areas, 

 unless the areas are along main routes of travel, as in the case of the 

 California redwood groves. 11 Primeval areas are the result of a very 

 delicate balance of natural conditions. As soon as they become over- 

 run by hordes of people the original conditions are upset and the 

 natural balance of the forest destroyed. To prevent this it will 

 generally be necessary to prohibit camping, most destructive of the 

 recreational uses of the forest, in all primeval areas except a few of the 

 most extensive. Where camping is permitted it will have to be con- 

 fined to specially prepared camp grounds. Trails will have to be con- 

 structed through the areas so that the great bulk of people, instead of 

 tramping promiscuously over everything, will limit their wanderings 

 to the pathways. 



PRESERVATION FROM NATURAL ENEMIES 



Areas of forest land that are devoted to recreation require just as 

 serious protective measures as do commodity areas. Fires, insects, 

 and fungi may in fact be even more destructive to recreational than 

 commercial values. Dead trees often have a salvage value as com- 

 modities, but there is no way of salvaging the destroyed beauty of a 

 ruined forest. 



In spite of the best protective efforts, however, there is one natural 

 enemy against which the primeval forest can not in the long run be 

 protected. This enemy is senility. Sentimental conservationists 

 talk glibly about setting aside virgin timber tracts to be preserved in 

 all their natural glory forever. Nevertheless relatively few forest 

 trees live beyond 400 years. What is a beautiful virgin forest today 

 may in 40 years be a very ragged stand in which most of the old trees 

 are dying and in which the understory will require a century or more 

 to attain the size and beauty of the former forest. There is good 

 evidence that in the past great areas of overmature timber were wiped 

 out by widespread insect epidemics, often followed by fire. 



Just recently the disastrous mountain pine beetle epidemic among 

 the lodgepole and ponderosa pine stands of the northern Rocky 

 Mountains has destroyed the overmature timber on millions of acres, 

 in spite of strenuous efforts to control it. Such natural devastation is 

 bound to occur among trees that have passed their normal life span. 

 Expensive protective measures may delay it, but they can never make 

 trees immortal. The primeval forest, though it is a self-perpetuating 

 unit, is bound to go through cycles of deterioration and upbuilding. 



Since deterioration is inevitable, and many years or even several 

 centuries may elapse before the beauty of the primeval is restored, 

 sustained-yield principles must be applied to primeval areas as well 

 as to lands which are being logged. It is necessary, in other words, 

 to maintain in a primitive state a complete rotation of age classes, so 

 that when the overmature forest decays a mature stand will be grow- 

 ing up to take its place and a stand of reproduction will be advancing 

 toward maturity. 



11 A report upon the Effect of Excessive Tourist Travel on the California Redwood Park, E. P. Meinecke, 

 1928. 



