620 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



and property has been caused by cupidity. The result of the appli- 

 cation of intense local and national political pressure has created 

 serious questions in the actual management of Indian forest property. 



GENERAL FOREST POLICY 



The general policy of the Forestry Branch of the Indian Service 

 may be quoted as follows (7, p. 434) : 



A. To administer all allotted timber lands so as to insure the highest present 

 economic return consistent with a reasonable consideration of the future use to 

 which the land will probably be devoted. 



B. To administer all tribal lands that are primarily adapted to the production 

 of timber, or the protection of slopes, in such manner as to secure the highest 

 present economic return for the tribe that is consistent with theoretically correct 

 forestry principles and to preserve these lands so that whether they remain per- 

 manently as communal lands of a tribe, are acquired by the Federal or State 

 Government, or are sold in large areas to private interests, they shall remain 

 productive and capable of doing their part toward insuring the future welfare of 

 the citizens of the United States of which the Indians themselves are a part. 



All sales of Indian timber made under authority of the act of Con- 

 gress of June 25, 1910, have clearly contemplated the cutting of the 

 timber in such manner as to insure the maintenance of the forest 

 cover on all lands primarily adapted to the production of timber crops. 



In evolving and carrying out timber-sale plans the following points, 

 given in order of importance, have been considered : 



A. The financial need of the Indians, individually and collectively. 



B. The potential and actual resources of the Indians and the extent 

 to which it is necessary for them to liquidate their timber capital to 

 provide funds for social, educational, industrial, and general economic 

 betterments. 



C. The demand for Indian stumpage. 



D. The extent to which scientific forestry can be practiced in view 

 of the above. 



Timber-sale plans, in addition to the above, must be and have 

 been varied to fit different silvicultural conditions obtaining on the 

 several reservations and even on different parts of the same reserva- 

 tion. In fact, when other considerations (particularly economic) 

 remain constant, timber-sale plans are almost entirely dependent 

 upon what is desirable and feasible from a silvicultural standpoint. 



J. P. Kinney states the situation (7, p. 433) in general terms thus: 



On many reservations a large part of the standing merchantable timber was 

 mature or over-mature and the removal of all mature timber would leave little 

 reproduction or advance growth. On areas of this character it has been the policy 

 to leave a part of the mature timber for seed trees. Where there is a mixed 

 stand of mature and immature trees of yellow pine, or mixed types, in the yellow- 

 pine region, a true selective cutting has been made. In the Douglas fir, cedar, 

 spruce, and hemlock type of western Washington we have generally followed 

 the policy of cutting all mature trees and, as all who are familiar with these coast 

 types know, very few trees of any species remain uninjured when the logging is 

 completed. 



* * * The conditions are quite variable on reservations both in the North- 

 west and the Southwest. On the Colville in Washington fairly satisfactory 

 reproduction conditions exist which are coupled with most extreme fire danger; 

 on the adjoining Spokane fully as good reproduction factors are found with 

 materially lower fire risk and with a much larger percentage of the timber land 

 included within allotments; on a large part of the Klamath there is little repro- 

 duction or advance growth associated with over-mature stands, and on the 

 Flathead the saw timber has been reserved for the tribe on tens of thousands of 

 acres for which individual Indians have been given trust patents. * * * On 



