A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1221 



national retail buying and pay about 6 per cent of the national income 

 tax. 



About 50 percent of all of the forest land of the country is in these 

 States and to extend thorough protection over the whole area at this 

 time would probably cost as much as to protect the remaining forest 

 area. Fires running over forest land generally do much less damage 

 to commercial stands than they do in the West and in some of the 

 northern States, and the need to save the killing of young trees in 

 order to provide a future stand is never as keenly felt by either the 

 landowner or the public as the need to save timber of larger size. 

 These States are generally finding it difficult to raise sufficient funds 

 for governmental and social-service functions, and it appears unlikely 

 that they can within the next 10 or 15 years provide funds for ade- 

 quate State-wide protection systems. Until such systems are 

 definitely set up, the maximum of private effort cannot be developed. 



In the Northwest, where about half of the privately owned forest 

 land has not yet been cut over, private owners have been paying the 

 larger share of protection expenditures, and it is believed that as an 

 average about 40 per cent of the needed funds will be supplied from 

 this source during at least the next decade. Three of these States 

 are paying for the protection of a relatively large area of State-owned 

 lands but contribute very little to the protection of lands in private 

 ownership. The analysis indicates, however, that if the Federal 

 share is increased to 25 percent of the total fund required, the States 

 are financially able to supply the remainder. 



It must be emphasized that such calculations cannot be taken as 

 more than very broad indicators of ability to finance protection. 

 There are many other considerations which will seriously impair their 

 application to individual States. It is, however, believed that they are 

 of some value in an attempt to arrive at an estimate of possibilities. 



It should be stated also that theoretical calculation of ability to pay 

 or comparative actual capacity to pay, if it were known, would not 

 constitute an accurate index of what will be done. 



Obviously, what any State spends for care of its forest resources 

 will depend largely on how it regards the need for such expenditures 

 in comparison with other needs. It appears that the older States, 

 whose virgin forest were largely cut over before exploitation in the 

 South and West began, have more fully realized the need for replace- 

 ment and care of this resource and are inclined to give it a higher 

 priority than those States where exploitation of virgin stands is still 

 going on or has only recently been completed. These indications 

 serve to emphasize the fact that a Federal-aid system can advance 

 only at the rate that the cooperating agencies are ready to advance, 

 and that State responsibility and State participation through tax- 

 raised funds should be emphasized in future administration of the act. 



THE FEDERAL RATIO 



In the apportionment of money in all forms of direct Federal aid 

 to States some general formula has been applied, and it does not 

 appear practicable to depart from this principle, excepting perhaps 

 temporarily. Therefore, the rato of Federal to State and private 

 funds in the underfinanced States cannot well be increased without 

 also increasing it in those which have demonstrated ability and 

 willingness to provide needed funds under the present arrangement. 



