A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 571 



three others, many individual additions have been made by Congress 

 from the public domain upon the demand of local residents convinced 

 of the benefits of nearby national-forest administration. This has 

 been one of the most striking proofs of the success of the national- 

 forest enterprise. Often this demand has involved lands with little 

 or no timber on them, but of great local value for grazing or watershed 

 protection. 



In the Weeks' Law (act of Mar. 1, 1911), a new national policy 

 was established the purchase by the Federal Government of forest 

 lands necessary to the protection of the flow of navigable streams. 

 The Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 extended this policy to lands within 

 the watersheds of navigable streams necessary for the production of 

 timber. Under these acts the national forests east of the Mississippi 

 River have been established, except those created chiefly from the 

 public domain in Michigan, Minnesota, and Florida. 



It became apparent early in the life of the national forests, both to 

 the Forest Service and to local residents and forest users, that the 

 national forests could much better serve their purposes nationally 

 and locally if much of the privately owned forest land within the 

 forest boundaries could be made a part of the national forests. 

 Management of the national forests is complicated in many ways by 

 the interspersed private timberlands, whose ownership is usually con- 

 cerned only with liquidating their timber assets rather than with 

 their permanent management for forest growing. Through local 



Eublic support, and often upon local initiative, Congress passed a 

 irge number of acts authorizing the Forest Service to acquire pri- 

 vately owned lands within specifically described areas by the exchange 

 therefor of an equal value in either national forest land or timber. 

 Finally this plan so thoroughly demonstrated its soundness and value 

 that in 1922 Congress passed the general exchange law authorizing 

 this practice on all national forests. This act applies to lands within 

 the exterior boundaries of the national forests, but so great has been 

 the local interest in extending national-forest management to adjacent 

 lands that a number of special bills have been passed extending the 

 exchange authority to lands within specified limits outside the national- 

 forest boundaries. Altogether under the exchange laws 1,205,100 

 acres have been acquired up to December 31, 1931. This has been 

 mainly cut-over lands, though in some cases land bearing mer- 

 chantable timber has been offered at such favorable rates as to justify 

 its acquisition. Since the exchanges have usually been in the form 

 of national-forest timber for private land and timber, the national 

 forests have gained 814,685 acres in area by the exchanges. 



FURTHER ADDITIONS FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AND 



BY EXCHANGE 



There is still a large area of public domain in the Western States, 

 not now under any form of management, which by character and 

 adjacency should be considered for addition to the present national 

 forests or for the creation of new units. Figure 2 indicates the addition 

 to the national forests and the new units proposed by the Forest 

 Service to the President Hoover's Committee on the Conservation and 

 Administration of the Public Domain, based on the existence of public 

 domain suitable for national-forest purposes, and needing the national- 

 forest type of management to develop its fullest usefulness. Within 



