A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1055 



SEC. 2 (as amended by act of Mar. 3, 1925, 43 Stat., 1127, and act of Apr. 13, 

 1926, 44 Stat. 242). That if the Secretary of Agriculture shall find that the 

 system and practice of forest fire prevention and suppression provided by any 

 State substantially promotes the objects described in the foregoing section, he is 

 hereby authorized and directed, under such conditions as he may determine to be 

 fair and equitable in each State, to cooperate with appropriate officials of each 

 State, and through them with private and other agencies therein, in the protection 

 of timbered and forest-producing lands from fire. In no case other than for pre- 

 liminary investigations shall the amount expended by the Federal Government in 

 any State during any fiscal year, under this section, exceed the amount expended 

 by'the State for the same purpose during the same fiscal year, including the expen- 

 ditures of forest owners or operators which are required by State law or which are 

 made in pursuance of the forest protection system of the State under State super- 

 vision, and the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to make expenditures on the 

 certificate of the State forester, the State director of extension, or similar State 

 official having charge of the cooperative work for the State that State and private 

 expenditures as provided for in this Act have been made. In the cooperation 

 extended to the several States due consideration shall be given to the protection 

 of watersheds of navigable streams, but such cooperation may, in the discretion 

 of the Secretary of Agriculture, be extended to any timbered or forest producing 

 lands or watersheds from which water is secured for domestic use or irrigation 

 within the cooperating States. 



SEC. 3. That the Secretary of Agriculture shall expend such portions of the 

 appropriations authorized herein as he deems advisable to study the effects of tax 

 laws, methods, and practices upon forest perpetuation, to cooperate with appro- 

 priate officials of the various States or other suitable agencies in such investiga- 

 tions and in devising tax laws designed to encourage the conservation and growing 

 of timber, and to investigate and promote practical methods of insuring standing 

 timber on growing forests from losses by fire and other causes. There is hereby 

 authorized to be appropriated annually, out of any money in the Treasury not 

 otherwise appropriated, not more than $2,500,000 to enable the Secretary of 

 Agriculture to carry out the provisions of sections 1, 2, and 3 of this Act. 



This law was passed after a special Senate committee had made an 

 exhaustive study of forestry needs. It was an attempt to advance the 

 protection of forest and water resources and to provide conditions 

 under which the practice of forestry by private owners would be freed 

 from excessive handicaps, so that it could be undertaken profitably 

 by the owner to the advantage of the Nation. Under the authoriza- 

 tion of $2,500,000 annually, an initial appropriation for cooperation 

 with the States in forest fire protection was made for the fiscal year 

 1926 in the amount of $660,000. For the succeeding fiscal years, 

 appropriations have been made as follows: 1927, $710,000; 1928, 

 $1,000,000; 1929, $1,209,802; 1930, $1,400,000: 1931, $1,700,000; 

 1932, $1,775,000. As an economy measure, a saving was made in the 

 1932 appropriation, so that the actual provision was $1,612,600. 



The total amounts of Federal, State, and private money expended 

 under these two acts from March 1, 1911, to June 30, 1932, including 

 the amount spent for the investigations of forest taxation and forest 

 insurance, are the following: 



Weeks law_. $2,431,378 



Clarke-McNary law 8, 355, 819 



Total Federal _ $10,787,197 



State and private under Weeks law $12, 380, 607 



State and private under Clarke-McNary law 24, 256, 679 



Total State and private 36, 637, 286 



Grand total. . 47, 424, 483 



