A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 839 



Hitherto, State governments taken as a whole have not been con- 

 spicuous for their success in developing the function of public service 

 as applied to difficult, constructive tasks. The situation of the Lake 

 States in this respect is on all fours with that of every other State 

 in which public forest administration may be undertaken as a State 

 enterprise. It is the same situation as that which for a good while 

 made the success of the Federal forest reserve policy uncertain. 

 Success in that came through a happy combination of very unusual 

 circumstances, of which one was the establishment on a firm founda- 

 tion in the Federal establishment of the merit system for the Civil 

 Service. 



REGIONAL CONCENTRATION OF STATE FORESTS 



Of the 7,078,058 acres embraced in organized State forests and 

 parks 89 percent is in the North and Middle Atlantic States and the 

 Lake States. New England has 276,000 acres of forest in her State 

 forests and parks, New York has about 2,450,000 acres, Pennsylvania 

 about 1,600,000 acres, New Jersey 61,000 acres, Maryland, 50,000, 

 and the three Lake States 2 million acres not including Wisconsin's 

 460,000 acres of county forests, with large further increases in pros- 

 pect under legislation already enacted. In the far Northwest, 

 Montana, Idaho, and Washington make up another group of States 

 in which there are extensive holdings of forest lands under more or 

 less definite reservation (or in Idaho 's case under actual operation 

 though without any expressed legislative policy of management or 

 permanent ownership) for State forest purposes. ^ These three States 

 together own 2,700,000 acres of forest land, of which not quite three 

 fourths take their place in the "twilight zone" between State forests 

 and " other State-owned forest land. " Elsewhere than in these three 

 groups of States, one along the Atlantic coast, one about the Great 

 Lakes, and one in the Pacific Northwest, State forests have scarcely 

 begun to appear on the map. Within these three groups of States 

 is the ownership of 86 percent of all the State-owned forest land in the 

 country. 



This high degree of concentration of State forests suggests at once 

 some important questions. Why have not States in other regions 

 embarked on programs of extensive forest ownership and administra- 

 tion? Are they likely to fall into line shortly, or must any large 

 increase in the area of public forests, if a large increase is necessary, 

 depend upon Federal action either through a greatly expanded 

 program of acquisition for national forests or through aid to the 

 States, to enable or induce them to acquire the lands themselves? 



In attempting to get at the facts which may throw light on these 

 questions it is essential to bear in mind the very different situations in 

 the western half and in the eastern half of the country. One great 

 difference is that of the entire western commercial forest area 62 

 percent is federally owned, or is managed by the Federal Government 

 as trustee on behalf of Indians, and 53 percent is in national forests, as 

 against 2 percent in Federal ownership or trusteeship and 1.7 percent 

 in national forests in the East. Many of the public needs in response 

 to which eastern State forests are being built up, to the extent that 



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