688 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



In order to speed up the initial survey. Under the existing legislation 

 the work must be discontinued as soon as the initial survey is com- 

 pleted. But it is becoming more and more clear that provision should 

 be made for keeping the data current indefinitely. These considera- 

 tions will soon justify another amendment to the Forest Research Act. 



Closely related to the Forest Survey is another problem, land 

 classification, the crucial importance of which as a great national 

 enterprise is beginning to be appreciated only during the last few 

 years largely as a result of the efforts of the Bureau of Agricultural 

 Economics. Various classification activities have been under way 

 for many years, such as the soil survey of the Bureau of Chemistry 

 and Soils, and the classification of forest and agricultural lands in 

 the national forests by the Forest Service. 



Agricultural as well as and possibly more than forest land is involved 

 in the national classification enterprise. The need for classification 

 is indicated by maladjustments in land use which are particularly 

 apparent during periods of economic stress such as the present. The 

 evidences include widespread abandonment of agricultural lands, 

 particularly of the submarginal class, often with tragic consequences 

 to the owners; the breakdown of town and county governments which 

 is one extreme local result of the nonpayment of taxes and land 

 abandonment; an unregulated back-to-the-land movement growing 

 out of unemployment, which in some instances promises to repeat the 

 vicious cycle of attempts to use lands unsuitable for agriculture followed 

 by later abandonment; and excessive erosion and disastrous floods 

 following the cultivation of lands which should have been kept in 

 forest. The information obtained in the Forest Survey, that obtained 

 in other economic investigations, and also that obtained in forest 

 management investigations, will necessarily have to be supplemented 

 for the intelligent classification of forest lands. Integration of all 

 pertinent information on the character of the land itself, what it can 

 be expected to produce, and related economic and social questions 

 must be insured in order to furnish satisfactory results. 



Provision for Forest Service participation in the forest-land aspects 

 of classification can be made either in an additional section to the 

 McSweeney-McNary Act or as a part of a general authorization for 

 all classes of lands. What funds will be needed is uncertain, because 

 no attempt has been made as yet to work out detailed plans. As an 

 approximation, however, it would be well to provide for annual in- 

 creases of some such amount as $50,000 or $75,000 over a period of 

 as many years as may prove necessary, which might reach five. 



Substantial progress, particularly under the stimulus of the Mc- 

 Sweeney Act, has been made in financing new research. Even though 

 the depression does not force serious cuts in appropriations, and the 

 authorization limits are reached in the fiscal year 1938, it is becoming 

 more and more clear that by that time only a substantial beginning 

 can be made toward covering the field necessary to meet Federal 

 obligations. 



In the Central Rocky Mountains, work is now confined to a small 

 part of the silvicultural field and the experiment station is little more 

 than a name. Outside of the United States proper no attempt has 

 been made to establish the stations authorized for Alaska, Hawaii, 

 or the West Indies. With present resources no silvicultural work can 

 be done on many of the important forest types in the forest regions 



