572 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the exterior boundaries of the additions as proposed there are 

 34,523,592 acres. Of this, 19,017,210 acres are unreserved public 

 lands, 1,901,344 acres are State lands, and 13,605,038 acres are private 

 lands. This distribution of ownership is similar to that now existing 

 within present national-forest boundaries. If these additions are 

 made, the land-exchange practice now in effect on the national forests 

 can then be extended to these areas. Perhaps 5 million acres or more 

 of the privately owned lands would be suitable for acquisition by ex- 

 change. These additions to the national forests would serve to make 

 the existing units even more useful by more nearly approaching the 

 logical boundaries as fixed by natural conditions. A complete dis- 

 cussion of the public domain forest lands is contained in the section of 

 this report dealing with " Public Doman and Other Federal Forest 

 Land." 



Almost entirely in addition to the areas indicated on figure 2, there 

 are privately owned lands, extensive in the aggregate, adjacent to the 

 western national forests which are logical parts of geographic and 

 management units lying chiefly within existing national forests. 

 The major part of such areas adjoins the national forests in Oregon, 

 Washington, and Idaho. As these lands are cut over, or in some 

 cases before, they should be acquired as national-forest lands by an 

 extension of the national-forest exchange act. Since the exact limits 

 to which such extensions of the national-forest boundaries should go 

 are dependent in part upon constantly changing conditions as to 

 ownership of the private land adjacent to the national forests, and 

 the intent of ownership as to management of the lands, it is not 

 possible to establish an exact figure for the area of this class of lands. 

 Probably between 5 and 10 million acres would be included in this 

 category for ultimate acquisition. Wherever feasible, extension 

 of the national-forest boundaries should aim at including the whole 

 of natural units, such as entire main slopes or watersheds. Usually 

 the best management can be given where such natural units are under 

 single control. 



Inside existing western national-forest boundaries there are prob- 

 ably from 10 to 12 million acres of private land which should be given 

 a national-forest status by exchange, or otherwise. 



Much consideration by the local residents is being given to the 

 possibilities of adding to the national forests the parts of the Oregon 

 and California revested grant lands in Oregon which are within or 

 adjacent thereto, under some plan which will liquidate the State and 

 county equities in the O. & C. lands established by the re vestment 

 act of June 9, 1916. 



The rate at which it has been possible to accomplisn land exchanges 

 so far forecasts a long period before even the land inside present 

 forest boundaries which should be acquired can be obtained in this 

 way. Only a minor portion of the timber cut on national-forest sales 

 can be used in effecting exchanges because the use of such timber 

 for this purpose reduces the cash payment to the counties involved 

 from the 25 percent of national-forest gross receipts which is paid 

 each year to the counties in which the national forests are located. 

 Since such exchanges, by adding to the productive capacity of the 

 national forests, inure to the benefit of the counties in the long run, 

 county authorities generally have favored the exchange practice, 

 but in most cases have felt able to relinquish only part of the 25 

 percent fund revenue for this purpose. The extremely conservative 



