592 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



far from filled by the 1,800 camp grounds already developed. About 

 2,300 more are needed, at an estimated cost of about $1,800,000. 



Another need is to amend the act authorizing term permits. This 

 now allows the issuance of permits for periods up to 30 years, for not 

 more than 5 acres of land each, for summer homes, resorts, and sim- 

 ilar developments. For many of the hotel and like developments 

 needed for the full enjoyment of the national-forest recreation oppor- 

 tunities, 5 acres is not enough. The act should be amended to enlarge 

 the area which may be permitted to not over 80 acres. 



Because of its correlation with other phases of administration, the 

 cost of administering the recreational use of the national forests, per 

 visitor and in total, probably is and will be much below the cost 

 under any other practicable form of public administration. 



Recreation is obviously one of the major uses of the national forests. 

 In the Western States a large part of the area where forest recreation 

 may be enjoyed is in the national forests. The Superior National 

 Forest in Minnesota embraces some of the finest canoe country in 

 North America. The recreational use of the White Mountain Na- 

 tional Forest in New England is heavy. It is the view of the Forest 

 Service that the recreational advantages of the national forests should 

 be widely enjoyed, that recreation should be fully recognized as one 

 of the major resources of the national forests, and that the recreational 

 use should be so coordinated with other uses as to avoid conflicts 

 which would undesirably impair any important values. 



Every effort has been made to translate this view into active policy. 

 On the one hand specific provision has been made for facilities needed 

 by recreationists through permits for residences, resorts, municipal 

 camps, and similar developments; camp grounds have been developed ; 

 the location of especially attractive recreational features shown and 

 described on map folders issued to the public in connection with the 

 educational campaign in fire protection ; part of the public-road system 

 on the national forests has been constructed for access to recreational 

 areas ; timber cutting has been modified or excluded from areas where 

 the recreational and aesthetic values are high or paramount, such as 

 around lake shores, along highways, in summer-home colonies; 

 grazing of livestock excluded from meadows needed for campers' 

 horses, immediately around camp grounds, and where chosen areas 

 containing unusual wild-flower displays are to be safeguarded. On 

 the other hand, recreationists have been excluded from municipal 

 watershed areas where necessary to avoid danger of contamination 

 of the water supply, and from areas of exceptional fire hazard; recrea- 

 tional developments are not allowed to obstruct the only logging 

 access to large bodies of timber, nor to intrude on the borders of 

 highways or lake shores so as to impair esthetic values. The whole 

 effort has been to direct and regulate the recreational use to the extent 

 needed in a general plan of correlated use of all resources, with the 

 minimum restriction on the freedom of the recreationist to use the 

 national forest in his chosen way. 



In order that there may be adequate authority for the Forest 

 Service to make modest expenditures for some expert assistance in 

 planning the proper development of the areas possessing outstanding 

 scenic or recreational quality, and for the other things needful in 

 properly handling the ever-increasing recreational use, it is desirable 

 to have specific congressional authorization along those lines. 



