A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1245 



use is desirable. (See sections entitled " Program Necessary to 

 Meet Watershed Requirements" and "The* Probable Future Distri- 

 bution of Forest Land Ownership.") 



7. One of the major adjustments in land use previously indicated 

 is the anticipated large increase in areas devoted to recreational or 

 educational purposes. It is obvious that most of the 45 million acres 

 suggested for such use should be in public ownership. This will there- 

 fore be an important factor in future shifts between private and public 

 agencies. 



THE NEED FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION 



Under the free play of economic forces, land tends to be put to the 

 use under which it can be given the highest capital value. In the 

 early stages of settlement of any country or region, land is in general 

 readily available for all purposes and practically no capital value 

 exists for the land itself. The development of communities with 

 increasing demands for food and materials for construction soon 

 creates competition for the use of land and this in turn establishes 

 definite capital values. In such competition, value will be attached 

 to land according to the income which may be derived from its use. 



Land to be used for cities, towns, or special uses such as power sites, 

 will ordinarily have the highest income-producing capacity and there- 

 fore the highest value. Land for the production of crops will rank 

 next in value. Only the lands not suited for these uses or not needed 

 for them will remain in forest or open range. Within each broad cate- 

 gory the specific use to which the land is put will also depend on its 

 relative income-producing capacity. Land may pass from one use to 

 another higher in the scale in a series of successive stages, with the 

 margin of each utilization class extending further out into poorer or 

 more remote areas as development proceeds. But frequently land of 

 the poorest intrinsic productive capacity may be capitalized at high 

 values for real estate because of its location and so may pass directly 

 from its original wild condition to the highest industrial use. 



Values established in this process tend to rise steadily with increase 

 in population as long as the resources of the land hold out, unless 

 affected by factors outside the region or country concerned. Reversal 

 of the upward trend of values for land in any category may result 

 from opening up of new territory under conditions where yields are 

 high and costs of production low, from the development of cheap 

 transportation from another region previously inaccessible, from major 

 technological changes such as substitution of the gasoline engine for 

 animal power, or from the exhaustion of the resources which have 

 supported the local development without the establishment of new 

 economic services for the communities concerned. In short, any factor 

 which reduces the income which the land may produce will serve to 

 depress its value and may mean reversion to a lower form of use. 



Within the past few decades this country has simultaneously en- 

 countered in one region or another almost all these factors tending to 

 unsettle land values and economic use. Readjustment under the free 

 play of economic forces is an exceedingly slow process. It has re- 

 sulted in some incongruous situations and the creation of conditions 

 which are often contrary to the best welfare of the people. It would 

 probably be necessary for conditions to get much worse before con- 

 structive measures were undertaken on a large scale by private owners. 



