A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 841 



At the present time exchanges are under negotiation with Colorado 

 and New Mexico, by which the first State will receive approximately 

 100,000 acres of blocked up land and the second 286,757 acres. 



The acts granting statehood to Arizona and New Mexico also 

 granted large areas of public lands for common-school purposes, but 

 provided that where the lands so granted were within national 

 forests the States would not acquire title thereto unless or until the 

 lands were eliminated from the national forests. But the acts 

 specified that pending that time there should be paid annually to each 

 State shares of the gross revenues from the national forests pro- 

 portionate to the ratio between the lands granted to the State and the 

 total net area of national-forest lands within the State. The States, 

 however, were privileged to use the granted lands as base for lieu 

 selections of unreserved public lands. New Mexico has exercised 

 this privilege so fully that only about 35,000 acres remain in the 

 national forests subject to the rule mentioned; but Arizona largely has 

 preferred to leave her granted lands under national-forest management 

 and has to her credit approximately 1,125,000 acres in that status. 

 Some 30,000 acres of university lands are also administered by the 

 Forest Service for Arizona under cooperative agreement. In New 

 Mexico the State secures technical advice in timber management 

 from the Forest Service, but the agreement does not cover the actual 

 protection and administration of State lands by the Federal agency. 



In South Dakota, the State park of 61,000 acres and an additional 

 area included in a State game refuge were obtained through exchange, 

 and California's 9,900-acre State forest is likewise the result of an 

 exchange. In short, the explanation of most of the State forest land 

 administration that has been undertaken or is in prospect in the 

 West is to be found in the fact that because of the presence of the 

 national forests the States were able to convert their school lands into 

 blocked-up areas suitable for enterprises of forestry. They have 

 had the great advantage of being able usually to start with lands on 

 which the original timber was still in place. The few States which 

 remained in possession of more than small remnants of their granted 

 lands are now able to go ahead with undertakings of forest manage- 

 ment far different from those that must begin with stripped lands, as 

 in the East. Except in Washington there is nothing as yet to indicate 

 that there is any thought of building up State forests as they are 

 being built up in a few of the Eastern States, to take care of the land 

 use problem created by the breakdown of private ownership. 



Neither is it to be expected that extensive enterprises of forest 

 administration are likely to be engaged in soon by many more Eastern 

 States than those which have already made substantial beginnings. 

 It is a very slow process to get such enterprises under way. New 

 York has reached her present position after nearly 50 years of up- 

 building; Pennsylvania after 35 years; Connecticut after 30 years; 

 and so on. The Lake States have been moving a long time, but 

 without much progress until they suddenly woke up to an economic 

 and social problem of the first magnitude for them, which could not 

 be ignored. Much depends on the accident of finding the right 

 leadership and a favorable combination of circumstances. Much of 

 the support for State forests in the East has come from those inter- 

 ested in outdoor recreational opportunities. In States of relatively 



