1118 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



As developed by this method of analysis, the indicated financial 

 consequences to the States of a policy of private appropriation, 

 ownership, and protection of all lands attractive to private enter- 

 prise, and State protection and management of the unappropriated 

 or revested lands, are shown in table 5. The premises are believed 

 to be valid and conservative. They indicate that if instead of 

 being administered as national forests the lands involved were passed 

 to private ownership to the fullest degree warranted by their in- 

 herent values and taxed on the same bases as similar lands in private 

 ownership, and if the lands remaining in public ownership yielded 

 the highest return per acre per annum that probably could be 

 realized, and if the States protected, developed, and managed the 

 lands remaining in public ownership with the same qualitative 

 and quantitative standards as those hitherto applicable to the same 

 lands, 6 of the States would incur annual deficits and 22 of the States 

 would derive net financial returns. In 17 of these States the theo- 

 retical net return under this method would be less, in some cases 

 very much less, than the total net returns under national forest 

 management; in the other 5 the net returns under this method would 

 exceed, generally in small degree, the total net assistance under 

 national-forest administration; but in 4 of these States the na- 

 tional-forest lands largely or entirely have been acquired by pur- 

 chase or exchange with the complete concurrence and cooperation 

 of the State agencies and the superior merit and desirability of 

 national-forest aid is generally recognized and supported. Further- 

 more, such theoretical net balances of returns over cost as are de- 

 veloped by this method have now become extremely questionable 

 because of the downward trends of wild-land values and the growing 

 tendency for such types of lands to revert to public ownership through 

 tax delinquency. 



IF THE NATIONAL FORESTS HAD INSTEAD BEEN ADMINISTERED 



AS STATE FORESTS 



As another contrast to the known measures of aid afforded by the 

 national forests there remains for consideration the subject of the 

 probable consequences to the several States if the national-forest 

 areas, during the fiscal years 1923-27, had instead been adminis- 

 tered wholly as State forests, with no contributions from the Federal 

 Government other than the free cession of the public lands involved. 



The first question is whether the States would have been willing 

 to administer adequately all of the national-forest area. In numer- 

 ous cases a national forest is most important to the protection of 

 interests situated in other States, frequently remote from the area 

 under management. Where the immediate and tangible benefits 

 were of small extent and the major benefits accrued to other States, 

 there would be a natural reluctance on the part of the State contain- 

 ing the forest area to tax its own citizens beyond the point of local 

 and definite benefits, so that unless the beneficiary States made up 

 the additional costs under some form of interstate compact or agree- 

 ment there would be inadequate or no management of the particular 

 forest area. The difficulties of measuring and evaluating the benefits 

 from a specific area derived, respectively, by possibly several States, 

 and of providing by compact or agreement for the sharing of costs 

 in porportion to benefits, seem obvious. 



