A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 581 



timber within the working circle, thus insuring both the development 

 of a local manufacturing plant for the national-forest timber and the 

 realization of the greatest local benefit from the business based on its 

 utilization. 



For every large timber sale on the national forests, there are hundreds 

 of small ones. In the calendar year 1930, which was a reasonably 

 normal year for the national-forest timber sale business, there were 

 9,451 commercial sales involving up to $500 worth of stumpage each, 

 and 232 sales for amounts over $500. In addition 5,410 sales at the 

 mere cost of administration, under specific legal provision, were made 

 to homestead settlers and farmers for material needed on the farm. 

 Thus, farmers buy at a nominal cost a load or two of fence posts, a 

 few hay-stacker poles, or logs for a new house or barn to be used in 

 the round or sawed into lumber at a local custom mill. Or, in the 

 slack season, a farmer may take out a small commercial sale for 

 hewed railroad ties which he sells to the local railroad- tie contractor, 

 thus employing himself and his team when they would otherwise be 

 earning nothing. This opportunity to work in national-forest timber 

 on a part-time basis, either independently or for some logger or saw- 

 mill men, adds in large measure to local stability of employment and 

 builds up a solid, permanent interest in the national forests. 



The Harney National Forest in South Dakota is an example of the 

 union of national-forest management and local welfare developed to 

 the highest degree. Practically the entire forest is under intensive 

 management, with many small timber operators employing local help, 

 buying from local stores, stabilizing local revenues. Most of the small 

 towns in the region of 925 square miles depend chiefly on this business. 

 The local residents are educated to the workings and value of the 

 managed forests, talk management plans and working circles like any 

 forester, and local merchants put up on the main highways signs like 

 this: 



Harney Forest under the present sustained-yield plan will produce 15 million 

 board feet of lumber annually if fire is kept out. Hundreds of woodsmen and 

 their families are employed in harvesting this annual crop. For 35 years this 

 store has served these men as a supply base. We are here to serve them in the 

 future as we have in the past. Do your part. Help prevent forest fires and keep 

 the lumber industry alive. 



On January 1, 1932, 21 percent of the national-forest timber, ex- 

 clusive of Alaska, was covered by detailed management plans. An- 

 other 61 percent was covered by policy statements. Thus plans of 

 one sort or another have been made for 82 percent of the timber in the 

 national forests, excepting Alaska. Developments in Alaska have 

 naturally been slower than in the national forests nearer the market 

 and adjacent to private operations. Alaska has the capacity, how- 

 ever, to supply permanently a pulpwood cut equal to a fourth of our 

 current national newsprint requirements, and had it not been for the 

 depression substantial pulp and paper developments would have 

 already been under way there. 



In the fiscal year 1930 the cut of national-forest timber for all 

 purposes and all commodities was equivalent to 1,653 million board 

 feet. The sustained yield capacity of the national forests, assuming 

 more complete economic availability, would permit a much larger 

 annual cut. 



