A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 821 



In the South, where the Federal Government bears for the region as 

 a whole 45 percent of the cost, the States and local governments 35 

 percent, and the private owners 20 percent, the newness of the work 

 in most of the region, the relatively small scale on which the States 

 are prepared to finance the protective effort from their own treasuries, 

 and on the other hand the desire of a good many landowners to obtain 

 protection of their lands, have made this the only part of the East in 

 which the private contribution makes up a substantial part of the 

 total. The percentage derived from this source in some of the 

 Southern States is considerably greater than for the region as a whole. 



It should always be borne in mind that what is under discussion 

 in this section is the protection against fire provided by means of 

 organized State activities, as a public function. Private owners 

 may, and in many cases do, make individual expenditures for the 

 protection of their own property independently of the public protec- 

 tive system, just as the owners of factories, stores, and residential 

 properties in cities supplement the protection afforded by municipal 

 fire departments and regulatory ordinances, through private installa- 

 tions and precautionary measures of various kinds. Table 7 takes 

 no account of such supplementary forest protection outlays by 

 individuals. 



The distribution of costs as between the State on the one hand 

 and the counties or towns on the other hand takes many forms. 

 Sometimes it is a matter of individual arrangement. Frequently 

 either one half or all the cost of suppression is borne by the local units 

 of government sometimes as an initial outlay, sometimes through a 

 requirement of reimbursement of expenditures made by the State. 

 Oregon and Washington require the counties to meet one third of the 

 State protection expenditures for all purposes, and Rhode Island 

 requires the towns to meet the entire cost but reimburses them for 

 half the outlay; and there are other forms of division. The require- 

 ment of an assumption of part of the cost of suppression by the local 

 political units seems desirable. It brings closer home the feeling of 

 responsibility for conditions likely to lead to fires, is thus of educa- 

 tional value, and may have a preventive effect. 



PROTECTION AGAINST INSECTS AND DISEASES 



There has been no development of State organizations to meet the 

 damage and destruction caused by forest insects and forest-tree 

 diseases comparable to that for combating forest fires. This is not 

 because the damage from the former sources may not be great, but 

 because it is less spectacular, more insidious, and does not endanger 

 human lives. Further, widespread infestations are more difficult 

 if not more expensive to combat successfully. Great areas of forests 

 are laid waste by insects, and disease takes a tremendous toll of forest 

 trees either by killing them outright or by causing decay. The white- 

 pine blister rust is being strenuously combated by the cooperative 

 efforts of the Federal, State, and town governments and private own- 

 ers. Large sums of money are being spent in this effort. 



The gypsy and brown-tail moths (both insects introduced from 

 abroad) have been particularly destructive to forest trees in the 

 northeastern States; heroic efforts and tremendous sums of money 

 have been spent by the States, Massachusetts in particular, to combat 



