528 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



farmer turns his livestock. Thus the forest-range problem is one of 

 broad social economy and land utilization. It affects directly or 

 indirectly the permanent prosperity, development, and welfare of a 

 considerable part of the Nation. The forest and forage conditions, 

 as well as the character of use under each of the three major forest- 

 grazing situations, are so distinct that each is considered separately. 



WESTERN FOREST RANGES 

 EXTENT AND IMPORTANCE 



The extensive forest ranges of the West, largely occupying the 

 mountain areas, furnish a considerable percentage of the summer 

 feed for the beef cattle, sheep, and range horses of the Rocky Mountain 

 and Pacific Coast States. This region coincides with the three 

 western forest regions of "Forest Land the Basic Resource" section 

 of this report. It is composed of those States entirely west of the 

 100th meridian, and South Dakota. The region as a whole contains 

 more than 214 million acres of land classed as forest, of which it is 

 estimated that nearly 144 million acreas are grazed. (Table I.) 2 

 These forest ranges include the relatively small parts usable for grazing 

 of the dense forests such as the spruce-fir of mountain areas, the Doug- 

 las fir and redwood forests of the Pacific Coast, the lodgepole pine of 

 the Rocky Mountains and Cascades, and the chaparral of California. 

 They include the more open forest areas such as the pond erosa pine type, 

 found from the Canadian to the Mexican borders and from the Great 

 Plains to the Cascades and Sierra Nevada; and the woodland areas 

 usually forming the lower fringe of the forest. Included also are the 

 aspen forests largely in the Rocky Mountain States and the large 

 areas of usable brush lands which are potential forests. In addition 

 to these forest areas is a large acreage of open grassland and usable 

 brush land so intermixed with the forest ranges that their utilization 

 is an intergral part of the whole. 



TABLE 1. Estimated areas of commercial and noncommercial forest lands grazed 

 by livestock in the United States, by regions and classes of ownership 



COMMERCIAL AREAS 

 [Thousand acres] 



2 In this table, using as a basis the total commercial and noncommercial forest areas shown in "Forest 

 Land the Basic Resource" section of this report, the estimated areas of forest land grazed by domestic live- 

 stock were calculated from Forest Service records and observations, the 1930 census, and "An economic 

 survey of the range resources and grazing activities on Indian reservations", by Lee Muck, P. E. Melis, 

 and Q. M. Nyce, in hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Indian Affairs, U.S. Senate, 

 71st Cong., 2d sess. S.Res. 79, 308 (70th Cong.), and S.Res. 263 and 416 (71st Cong.), 1932. 



