A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1119 



Another question is that of the degree to which any given State 

 would permanently continue to carry the full obligation of forest 

 protection, development, and management of national-forest areas 

 if the greater part of the cost thereof fell upon the taxpayers of the 

 parts of the State most remote from such areas and apparently 

 deriving the least benefit therefrom. In such circumstances it is 

 not wholly improbable that tax-paying majorities might urge sharp 

 limitations of State action. 



Still another question is that presented by the large areas of 

 timber-productive lands actually owned by a number of the States 

 or counties and the annually increasing areas reverting to State 

 or county ownership through tax delinquency. States unprepared 

 to assume the entire obligation of forest conservation logically 

 would incline first to take over the areas within which State or 

 county responsibility was most definite and immediate, a course 

 conceivably militating against effective management of what are 

 now national forests. 



These circumstances suggest the improbability that complete and 

 fully effective protection, development, and management of what 

 are now national-forest lands could be anticipated or accomplished 

 through the media of State forests unless the net financial results 

 to the several States under that method were more favorable than 

 those obtainable by any other practicable method. The facts 

 available do not indicate that such would be the case. On the 

 contrary, administration of the national-forest areas as State forests, 

 considering each State as an entity, would result in heavier net 

 expenditures of State funds than would be necessitated by either 

 of the other two courses of action discussed herein. 



Making allowances for differences in standards of administration 

 and management, past State expenditures for forest and watershed 

 protection on State lands, as known to or understood by the Forest 

 Service, do not appear to demonstrate any inherent capacity on the 

 parts of the States or lesser political divisions thereof to perform such 

 functions at unit costs substantially lower than those incurred by the 

 Federal Government. In few if any instances could adequate pro- 

 tection and management be gained with smaller organizations or fewer 

 field men or men willing to work for appreciably lower rates of pay. 

 Performance by other State agencies of functions relating to forest 

 management or development would no more than offset the extent to 

 which such functions are now performed by other Federal agencies. 

 The conduct by 28 separate States of the forest-research work now in 

 progress on the national forests, collectively would require a greater 

 number of research workers than is necessary to carry out the Federal 

 program of research. Abundant factual data relating to the com- 

 parative costs of constructing and maintaining highways, roads, trails, 

 lookouts, telephone lines, administrative structures, and other physical 

 improvements show no basic factors consistently illustrative of the 

 greater economy of State expenditures. On the contrary, it is not 

 wholly improbable that the unit costs of administration would be 

 higher under State management than they were under Federal man- 

 agement. 



Nor is there any ground lor belief that the revenues which would be 

 derived from what are now national forests would be substantially 

 greater under State or county administration than under Federal 



