1102 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



forests. The standards, objectives, plans, and programs of the States, 

 counties, and private owners were relatively uninfluenced by consider- 

 ations of financial or economic exigency. For these reasons the results 

 of the 1927 study are used for the purpose of this analysis. 



The subject naturally divided itself into four major questions, 

 namely : 



1. The true measure of the Federal contribution toward the solu- 

 tion of the national economic and financial problem through the media 

 of the national forests. 



2. The degree, if any, to which the establishment and Federal 

 management of the national forests imposed upon the States and 

 counties additional burdens of cost in the discharge of their functions 

 of local government. 



3. For purposes of comparison, the probable financial consequences 

 to the States and counties if the public lands, instead of being reserved 

 for national-forest purposes, had continued subject to private appro- 

 priation under the land laws of the United States, with the States 

 assuming responsibility for the protection and management of the 

 unappropriated residue and deriving from the lands the taxes payable 

 upon those privately appropriated and the revenues obtainable from 

 those remaining or revested in public ownership. 



4. For further purposes of comparison, the probable financial 

 consequences to the States if the lands reserved for national-forest 

 purposes had instead been ceded to the States for administration as 

 State forests from which the States would derive all revenues over and 

 above the costs of protection, development, administration, and 

 management. 



To attain a true understanding of the situation, an effort was made 

 to compile the following data for each county containing substantial 

 areas of national-forest land : 



(a) The acreage of privately owned taxpaying lands, exclusive of 

 town and city property or of improvements, in each such county; 

 the total annual tax paid by such lands; the percentage of total county 

 income represented by such tax payments; and the average tax 

 return per acre of taxable land. Coupled with this was a study of 

 lands on which taxes had been delinquent three or more years. 



(6) The total acreage of lands in State or county ownership to which 

 title had been established by grants from the Federal Government, the 

 total revenues derived from such lands, the percentage of county 

 income represented by such revenues, and the average return per 

 acre. Coupled with this was a similar study of the lands which had 

 reverted to State or county ownership through tax delinquency. 



(c) The total contributions secured by the local taxing units from 

 the national forests in the form of direct payments from national 

 forest receipts; taxes upon privately owned improvements, Federal 

 payment of costs of road and trail construction and maintenance; 

 cooperation in fish and game protection; and benefits, such as free 

 use by citizens of timber and forage, difference between sale values of 

 timber and prices paid in sales at cost, value to State, private, and 

 outside lands of Forest Service protection against fire, tree diseases, 

 insects, etc.; these factors being reduced to total amounts, returns 

 per acre, and comparisons to total county income. 



(d) The estimated probable returns to States and counties from the 

 national forests, when through more complete utilization and better 

 management they become fully productive. 



