566 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



granted broad powers to direct the utilization of their resources. In 

 recognition of the large and intricate problem of technical land and 

 organic resource management which their administration involved, 

 the forest reserves were placed under the jurisdiction of the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in 1905. In 1907 the name was changed to 

 national forests as being more descriptive of their real character. 



With the undertaking of systematic management in 1905 came the 

 crystallization of the basic concept of the national forests. This con- 

 cept was a unit of land containing a variety of resources, all with a 

 public value, whose greatest potentiality for public service lay in a 

 system of management which would so correlate the development and 

 use of all the resources as to result in the largest net public benefit. 

 Coordinate with this theory of management of the national forests 

 was that of combining the maximum service to the Nation at large 

 with the greatest possible benefit to the local population, to the extent 

 of the latter 's dependence on the national-forest resources. The con- 

 trolling principle was stated to be the greatest good to the most people 

 in the long run. This concept has activated and controlled the 

 policies and practices on these Federal forests since that time. 



What has been the result of this venture a venture which at its 

 inception was new in the United States but which had been of proven 

 necessity in Europe's long forestry experience? 



At first there was much local opposition to the national forests on 

 the ground of so-called interference with the hitherto unrestricted use 

 of the public domain. Bitter fights were waged in several parts of 

 the West to defeat the enterprise and to do away with many of the 

 national forests. By selecting the forest rangers and most of the 

 forest supervisors from the local population, by locating the directive 

 administrative organization mainly in the West, close to the forests 

 and the users, by striving to reduce to a minimum the mistakes in- 

 evitable in the administration of a new project, and by adhering to 

 the principle of making the national forests serve the local needs the 

 program of regulated use gradually demonstrated its value to both 

 the general public and the local user. 



The annual payment of 25 percent of the national forest gross 

 receipts to the counties in which the national forests lie, to be spent 

 for schools and roads, and the expenditures by the Federal Govern- 

 ment for roads in and adjacent to the national forests, have con- 

 tributed heavily toward the favorable regard toward Uncle Sam as 

 a local landowner. Opposition changed to strong support. Instead 

 of seeking the abandonment of the enterprise, the demand became 

 widespread for an expansion of the system. A score of eastern States 

 have, by legislative enactment, expressed a desire to have the Fed- 

 eral Government establish national forests within their borders 

 under the purchase provisions of the Weeks law. The cut-over 

 private land problem has made the national-forest acquisition pro- 

 gram welcome in the Lake States, and bids fair to invite substantial 

 expansion of the national forests in several of the western States. 

 Several private owners have recently offered to give their cut-over 

 areas to the Federal Government to be added to the national forests. 



So the national forests have been steadily built up until they con- 

 tain between one seventh and one sixth of the commercial forest 

 land in the United States. They embrace extensive and important 

 watersheds. They include a third of the volume of the Nation's 



