1056 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



ADMINISTRATION OF THE ACTS 



the start the plan followed in the administration of the Weeks 

 and Clarke-McNary laws by the Forest Service has been based upon 

 the principle that the fire-protection work in each State would be 

 supervised and carried through by the State. State laws govern the 

 handling of fire and other trespass on State and private lands, the 

 protection of which is under discussion. State and private money 

 must be depended upon to carry most of the load. The projects are 

 therefore conducted under State plans, which, upon approval by the 

 Federal Government, are jointly developed by the State forester and 

 the Federal Forest Service. Annual budgets to carry out these plans 

 are submitted to the Forest Service for approval, as are the later reports 

 of expenditures which form the basis for Federal reimbursement to 

 the States. 



To protect the Federal interest and to give full advantage to the 

 States of the experience of the Forest Service and other States, Federal 

 inspection districts corresponding in general to the forest regions 

 have been established, with a district forest inspector in each. The 

 inspectors in the East with headquarters at Amherst, Mass. ; Wash- 

 ington, D.C; Asheville, N.C.; New Orleans, La.; and Louisville, Ky.; 

 report directly to the Washington office. The inspectors in the West 

 report to the regional foresters at Missoula, Mont.; Denver, Colo.; 

 Albuquerque, N.Mex.; Ogden, Utah; San Francisco, Calif.; Portland, 

 Oreg.; and Milwaukee, Wis. These inspectors keep in close touch 

 with each State project in the field. 



As a part of the fire plan for each State, careful estimates of areas 

 in need of protection, a layout of the organization, improvements, 

 etc., needed to accomplish adequate protection, and estimates of the 

 cost of such protection have been formulated. The estimates of areas 

 and costs as of 1930 are shown on table 2, columns 2 and 3. The 

 Clarke-McNary law itself, in its authorization of Federal appropria- 

 tions of $2,500,000 a year, presupposed an annual cost of approxi- 

 mately $10,000,000 as necessary to protect the State and private land 

 in all States. The 1930 revision of this cost was $13,386,273. Com- 

 parative studies and analyses made in the section of this report cover- 

 ing Protection Against Fire indicate that if protection of all forest 

 areas adequate to meet the standards as therein set up is to be attained 

 within the next 10 or 15 years the annual cost would be considerably 

 greater. 



GENERAL RESULTS 



FEDERAL AID AS A STIMULUS TO STATES IN ESTABLISHING AND 

 DEVELOPING FORESTRY DEPARTMENTS 



Up to 1911, when the Weeks Act was passed, only 16 States had 

 appropriated money to engage in the protection of forests from fire. 

 Upon passage of the act, 1 1 of these immediately entered into agree- 

 ments with the Federal Government to cooperate in forest fire pro- 

 tection. The number of States cooperating in this activity in 1932 

 was 38, including all the original 16 and 22 others. The organized 

 protection of privately owned forest land is known to have been ini- 

 tiated in at least 17 of the 22 additional States as a direct result of 

 Federal cooperation. It is believed that in many of them forest 

 protection would have been much longer delayed if Federal aid had 

 not been available. 



