1096 A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 



forest research essential to those ends, was motivated primarily by 

 considerations of national welfare and security. The forests adminis- 

 tered by the Federal Government are national in purpose and result, 

 as well as in ownership and management. But one important con- 

 sequence of the national-forest policy is that the burden upon the 

 States, counties, and private owners is measurably reduced, while 

 their enjoyment of the economic and social potentialities of the forest 

 lands continues undiminished is, in fact, enlarged and made more 

 permanent and systematic. 



In pursuance of this policy the Federal Government, since 1891, has 

 established 148 2 national forests situated in 31 of the States and in 

 Alaska and Puerto Rico. Within these administrative units it owns, 

 or is in process of acquiring, 161,360,691 acres of lands. The national 

 forests in the continental United States with a total net area of 140 

 million acres, comprise 7.36 percent of the total land area. Not all 

 of this area, however, is true forest land, since the national forests 

 inevitably embrace large areas above or below the altitudinal limits 

 of timber growth, and other lands supporting vegetation, brush, and 

 trees of great importance to streamflow stabilization but not capable 

 of producing timber of commercial sizes and species within practical 

 limits of time. The acreage of true forest lands under Federal con- 

 trol within the national forests in the continental United States is 

 estimated to be 74,679,000 acres, or approximately 15 percent of the 

 total area of forest land in the States. 



HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF NATIONAL FOREST 



SYSTEM 



The initial action by the Federal Government was as the custodian 

 of the public lands. By the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1103), it 

 inaugurated the policy of withdrawing the federally-owned forest 

 lands from processes of destructive exploitation and by the act of 

 June 4, 1897 (30 Stat. 34), it initiated the policy of regulated use and 

 occupancy of the lands so withdrawn. 



But the problem of forest conservation was most acute in States or 

 regions in which there were either no public lands at all or only very 

 limited and widely distributed areas of public lands. Here the in- 

 terest of the United States was not one of custodial management of 

 public properties but rather of national welfare. The rapid and 

 destructive depletion of forest resources was creating a condition of 

 economic insecurity. The deforestation of the watersheds of impor 

 tant streams was diminishing their navigability in interstate com- 

 merce and was causing widespread and remote damage both physical 

 and economic. The States in which this situation existed were not 

 prepared to meet it in an effective and adequate way. Public owner- 

 ship and management of the areas in which the situation was most 

 acute was imperatively necessary. To accomplish this the Federal 

 Government initiated the second phase in its program of forest-land 

 management through the enactment of the act of March 1, 1911 (36 

 Stat. 961), and eventually the act of June 7, 1924 (43 Stat. 653), 

 under which acts it has developed and placed under administration 

 east of the Great Plains 41 national forest units within which the 



2 Not including three Wisconsin areas which although constituting an important administrative unit 

 and representing substantial expenditures have not yet been formally proclaimed as national forests. 



