1098 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



conservation of lands remaining or revested in public ownership 

 (a markedly inadequate formula), or (c) with adequate State or 

 county protection and conservation of lands remaining or revested in 

 public ownership. 



2. Establishment of extensive systems of permanent State forests, 

 through which the States largely would redeem the public responsi- 

 bilities of forest protection and conservation. 



3. Establishment of extensive systems of national forests, through 

 which the Federal Government would assume a share of the public 

 responsibility of forest protection and conservation and, to that degree, 

 make it possible for the several States to meet more effectively a 

 vital problem of public welfare and necessity. 



The effectiveness of course 1 would have been contingent upon 

 the successful accomplishment of a vast program of legal, political, 

 and economic readjustments involving many revised or new concepts 

 of public and private functions. In relation to the urgency of the 

 situation, its possibilities markedly were limited and its fullest prac- 

 tical realization dependent upon a prolonged educational effort. 



Course 2 likewise was subject to many seemingly insuperable 

 obstacles to early adoption, in the form of State constitutional limita- 

 tions, legal restrictions, diverse land ownerships, and inadequate 

 financial resources. Few States had constitutional or legislative 

 authority to establish systems of State forests of even limited extent ; 

 few could divert from other uses the funds requisite to the acquisi- 

 tion, development, protection, and management of acreages of forest 

 land sufficient to offset the progressively widening area of depleted 

 or denuded forest. At the time when the need for affirmative action 

 in forest conservation became acute, it would have been impossible 

 for the several States and their constituent units of government to 

 have met the situation in any effective way. 



By force of circumstances, Federal action became inevitable in 

 support of, rather than competitive with, State action. The States 

 could not fully meet the situation without the aid of the Federal 

 Government. The establishment of national forests was a very 

 definite form of Federal aid. Every acre given a national-forest 

 status and protected, developed, and administered at Federal expense 

 correspondingly diminished the magnitude of the problem demanding 

 State and county action and made it possible for those agencies more 

 effectively to meet the phases of the situation which were within 

 their exclusive fields of action. 



THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCES OF NATIONAL FOREST 

 ADMINISTRATION 



By the establishment of a national forest the State or county in 

 which it is situated is relieved from all costs of public forest protection 

 related thereto except those incident to lands actually owned by the 

 State or county. The Federal Government at once establishes a 

 resident organization to protect, develop, and administer the lands 

 and to conduct all processes of management and research requisite 

 to their highest use and service. All physical improvements essential 

 to the proper protection and utilization of the national-forest lands, 

 such as forest highways, development roads and trails, lookout 

 towers, telephone lines, administrative structures, fences, etc., 



