1248 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



MEANS AVAILABLE FOR EFFECTING IMMEDIATE 

 ADJUSTMENTS 



The job of land-use planning based upon classification surveys is, 

 as has been shown above, an exceedingly difficult one. At best it 

 will take many years to classify the lands of the country and to put 

 systematic land-use planning into effect. In the meantime, it will 

 be possible to proceed with desirable adjustments in land use and 

 ownership where there is no doubt as to the proper classification or 

 where local surveys have been made. 



There are large areas such as rough, mountainous watersheds that 

 obviously have no agricultural value and where lands are of value only 

 for watershed protection and timber production. The classification of 

 many such areas would be simple and could be readily made at any 

 time. Delay in starting to make such adjustments until results of a 

 general classification are available is therefore neither desirable nor 

 necessary. Immediate ameliorative measures are at hand and may 

 be applied without danger of serious error due to insufficiency of facts. 

 They are: 



PUBLIC DOMAIN ADJUSTMENTS 



As of June 30, 1932, the public domain contained 173,318,246 

 acres located largely in the western part of the United States. As 

 the remnant of the original large Government holdings, it is, of 

 course, the poorest part, and it remains without any form of manage- 

 ment or administration. Most of it is treeless, semiarid land and of 

 little use for anything except grazing. A total of about 22 million 

 acres of the public domain should be added to the national forests. 

 The remainder should be organized into administrative units in 

 order to conserve the grazing resource and prevent erosion. Legisla- 

 tion which will effectually accomplish this purpose should be enacted. 

 (See section entitled, " Public Domain and Other Federal Forest 

 Land.") 



FEDERAL ACQUISITION BY PURCHASE 



Western national forests were created from the public domain, 

 but at the time when the national-forest movement started, little 

 public domain was left east of the Great Plains. Small areas, how- 

 ever, were set aside as national forests in Wisconsin, Michigan, 

 Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida. The participation of the Federal 

 Government through national forests in the eastern forestry move- 

 ment can, however, be said to have started in 1911 with the passage 

 of the Weeks law (act of March 1, 1911, 36 Stat. 961), which author- 

 ized the purchase of forest lands by the Government on the water- 

 sheds of navigable streams. Supplementing this, the Clarke-McNary 

 law (act of June 7, 1924, 43 Stat. 653) extended authority to pur- 

 chase lands for timber production. Under these laws the Federal 

 Government has acquired in 19 States in the East, up to June 30 

 1932, a total of 4,727,680 acres of forest lands which have been 

 incorporated into national forests. The total national-forest area in 

 the eastern half of the United States has through acquisition been 

 brought to 7,217,731 1 acres as of June 30, 1932. The program 

 under which the Forest Service is now working in acquiring lands in 



i Exclusive of 13,824 acres in Puerto Rico. 



