1120 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMEEICAN FOKESTEY 



administration. Higher returns would be obtainable only by higher 

 charges for resources or privileges, and since such higher charges 

 largely would be borne by local industries and interests, they con- 

 ceivably might diminish the tax-paying power of the local community. 

 At the present time, no national-forest stumpage is sold in large quan- 

 tities except at competitive bid and to the highest bidder after full 

 publicity has been given by appropriate advertisement. Livestock 

 growers in the western States frequently allege that increased grazing 

 fees would be a burden on the industry. The occupancy of national- 

 forest lands for commercial, industrial, and recreational purposes is 

 now allowed to the full extent of the public demand, at prices repre- 

 senting fair returns for the privileges enjoyed. No form of State or 

 county administration can be foreseen which would greatly stimulate 

 these revenue-producing activities over and above what they normalty 

 will be under national-forest administration, or derive therefrom an 

 annual revenue appreciably in excess of the revenue which will be 

 received under prevailing principles. 



In the absence of tenable grounds to the contrary it logically might 

 be contended that if the national forests covered by the 1927 study 

 had been administered as State forests during the fiscal years 1923-27 

 the net financial costs to the several States would have differed but 

 little from the actual net costs to the Federal Government as shown 

 in the next to the last column of table 1 . 



However, in recognition of a widely prevalent belief to the contrary 

 and as a means of meeting any existing valid doubts, an analysis has 

 been made on the premise that during the fiscal years 1923-27 the 

 States could have derived revenues 10 percent greater than those 

 received under national-forest auspices, and could have held costs of 

 adequate protection, development, and management to 80 percent of 

 the expenditures actually made. In the States in which the national- 

 forest lands were largely or wholly acquired by cash payment, the 

 States, of course, would have had to pay interest upon such capital 

 investments or would have lost the interest otherwise obtainable by 

 the use of the invested funds. An interest charge of 4.5 percent oh 

 the average annual investment during the 5-year period therefore was 

 included in States containing lands acquired by cash purchase. 



Table 6 summarizes the average extent to which each of the several 

 States would have derived revenues or incurred deficits if during the 

 fiscal years 1923-27 they had administered as State forests the lands 

 which in that period actually were administered by the Federal 

 Government as national forests but on the premise "that revenues 

 would have been 10 percent greater and administrative costs 20 per- 

 cent lower than they actually were. 



