A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1105 



TABLE 1. Summary of total and net average annual Federal expenditures for local 

 national-forest a<l ministration Continued 



In substance, in 397 counties in the continental United States 

 136,375,417 acres were under national-forest management during the 

 period of the study. They represented an average of 21.5 percent of 

 the total areas of the counties in which situated, varying from a 

 minimum of 2.5 percent in Maine to a maximum of 46.7 percent in 

 Idaho. During the 5-year period the expenditures of the Federal 

 Government in the protection, development, and management of these 

 lands averaged $12,888,701 per year, including all costs of constructing 

 and maintaining highways, roads, trails, and other physical improve- 

 ments, but exclusive of the costs of the Washington office, the Forest 

 Products Laboratory, the eight forest experiment stations, and the 

 various activities of the Forest Service not directly related to the 

 actual protection, development, and management of the national- 

 forest lands. These expenditures averaged 9.45 cents per acre per 

 year for the lands covered by the study, the acreage average ranging 

 from a minimum of 1.9 cents in Nevada to a maximum of 32.2 cents 

 in North Carolina. 



In offset to these expenditures the national forests yielded revenues 

 averaging $5,062,452 per year. Of this sum, however, $1,265,613 was 

 repaid to the States for distribution to the counties embracing the 

 national-forest lands, so that the average net return to the Treasury 

 was $3,796,839, which, credited against total administrative expendi- 

 tures, reduced them to an annual average of $9,091,862. 



These expenditures aided the States in several specific ways, 

 namely : 



1. They increased State and county financial resources by the 

 annual payment of substantial sums, comprising one fourth of the 

 total gross revenues derived from sales of natural resources and uses 

 of lands, without any State or county costs of collection. While it is 

 true that the money thus paid can be used only for school and road 

 purposes, its availability released other State or county funds for other 

 classes of expenditures, including forestry. 



