A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 621 



the Mescalero and Fort Apache Reservations in the Southwest, where excellent 

 conditions for western yellow pine reproduction and quite generally fair advance 

 growth on tribal lands are found, the reserving of a fair stand of vigorous young 

 or middle aged trees is justified; but on the Jicarilla where practically all timber 

 land is allotted and the beneficial interest of the tribe in the timber will expire 

 in 1932, the removal of the greater part of the mature timber is clearly indicated. 



SILVICULTURAL PRACTICE 



The forestry branch of the Indian Service is now guided, and has 

 been for some years, by broad conservative forest policies which may 

 be summarized as calling for the maximum returns from Indian forest 

 resources consistent with sound silviculture. Although the silvi- 

 cultural practice followed on the various reservations has been made 

 to fit local forest conditions wherever possible, the utter impossi- 

 bility of accomplishing very much silviculturally as long as land tenure 

 is most uncertain is obvious. In spite of this obstacle of uncertain 

 land tenure Indian Service foresters have been guided in the devel- 

 opment of silvicultural practice by the probable future use of lands 

 now forested as well as by the necessity of realizing the maximum 

 returns to the Indians. Notwithstanding the peculiar difficulties 

 involved, the development of silvicultural practice on Indian reser- 

 vations has kept pace with the general development of this science 

 on publicly managed lands and is far in advance of that obtaining 

 on the vast majority of private lands. The results obtained on two 

 reservations where the land tenure is less uncertain than on the 

 average reservation, namely the Menominee in Wisconsin and the 

 Klamath in Oregon, have been highly commended by foresters of 

 national and international reputation. 



In view of legislation and court decisions which have resulted in 

 the allotting of much valuable timberlands to individual Indians, 

 sustained yield cannot be successfully practiced on some Indian 

 reservations until the property rights of individual Indians established 

 by the courts have been taken care of. If tribal forests are to be 

 established and put on a sustained yield basis, or if Indian forest 

 areas in their present ownership are to be put on that basis, individual 

 Indians must, in all equity, be compensated for the loss of income from 

 their personal property. Any plan of sustained yield and unified 

 ownership cannot, in justice to the Indian, be promulgated and legis- 

 lated without acknowledging and fully satisfying the property rights 

 of individual Indians. "Foresters should not sacrifice the well- 

 established rights of men on the altar of speculative theory as to the 

 rights of trees." 



GRAZING RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION* 



The scope of country embracing the important livestock-producing 

 Indian reservations is very large and includes many variations in 

 range conditions. Of the 40 millions of acres of grazing land in 

 Indian reservations about 13 million acres is in the Great Plains 

 region of the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming; 4 million acres in the 

 Intermountain region of Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon; 

 and 23 million acres in the Southwestern States of Utah, Colorado, 

 Arizona, and New Mexico. These large areas, conforming in general 

 characteristics to those of the semiarid regions in which they are 



3 Material presented under this heading has been taken, in part, from a report by Lee Muck, entitled 

 "An Economic Survey of the Range Resources and Qrazing Activities on Indian Reservations. " 



