A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 837 



unless they are to be handled in accordance with the practices of 

 technical forestry, designating them county forests does not convert 

 them into productive land. If the present legislation and present 

 trends in tax delinquency are continued for 10 years, the county 

 holdings are likely to be increased by possibly 6 million acres. Here 

 again, the economic burden which must be assumed by some agency 

 if all the lands are to be put into an actually productive condition 

 promises to be staggering. It remains to be seen just what plan of 

 administration will eventually be worked put in Wisconsin, and how 

 extensive will be its application; but it is possible to attach more 

 significance to the figures of area of the present combined State and 

 county forests than they perhaps deserve. That Wisconsin is now 

 very much alive to the formidable dimensions and serious character 

 of the land use and forest problem which has to be faced is quite 

 true, and that a great change in the situation will be worked out seems 

 unquestionable; but compared with the State forest systems of the 

 few States in which the enterprise has become firmly established in 

 public approval and put on a good working basis, the present show- 

 ing of Wisconsin in provision for public forest administration is mostly 

 a showing on paper. 



Minnesota also has awakened to the necessity of meeting in a large 

 way the land use problem created by temporary private ownership of 

 forest lands for the sake of the accumulated timber values, with its 

 aftermath of land surrender when the merchantable stand has been 

 cut off. The situation in Minnesota is made different from that in 

 either Michigan or Wisconsin by the fact that Minnesota still holds 

 a large aggregate of timberlands received under the Federal land 

 grants. While Michigan has only about 12,000 acres of forest lands 

 left of the original granted lands, and Wisconsin about 190,000 acres, 

 Minnesota has more than 2 million acres. In addition, under the 

 provisions of a law enacted in 1927 to afford a clear title to lands on 

 which taxes have not been paid for 5 years, some 4 million acres are 

 expected from this source in 1933. Thus there is a combination in 

 Minnesota of the situation that exists in the other Lake States with 

 respect to reverting cut-over lands and of that which exists in Mon- 

 tana, Idaho, and Washington with respect to forest lands derived from 

 Federal grants. Like the three Western States, Minnesota has con- 

 stitutional restrictions upon the sale of the granted lands which have 

 operated to hold in her possession a very substantial part of her 

 originally more than 8 million acres of granted lands of all kinds. 



Although Minnesota passed the first law looking to the establish- 

 ment of forest reservations in 1899 and shortly afterward received, 

 through a private donation and a special Federal grant, a few thousand 

 acres dedicated to this purpose, and although following a constitu- 

 tional amendment in 1914 400,000 acres were given the status of 

 State forests, the actual organization of a system of State forests as 

 going enterprises is still in the formative stage. Prior to 1931, 13 

 units with a gross area of more than 1 million acres but embracing a 

 little less than 500,000 acres of State-owned lands received designa- 

 tion as State forests. No development work has been undertaken on 

 these units, and no local organization created primarily to take charge 

 of and care for them has been set up. Instead, the State's holdings 

 within them are administered and protected, as an incident to other 

 duties, by the district fire wardens and rangers of the organization 



