1260 A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



public acquisition. Management of forest lands for recreational 

 use conserves the watershed values. 



(3) The public interest in continued productivity of forest lands 

 has more and more been recognized as justifying public ownership 

 where private owners will not keep the lands reasonably productive, 

 and where the values produced through public management are 

 likely to equal or exceed the costs. It is shown in detail elsewhere 

 that for the Nation as a whole, and in many of the important forest 

 regions, the private lands are in a very unsatisfactory condition as 

 to growing stock. The conclusion is reached that on a very large 

 area of forest lands, the growing stock must be built up to safe- 

 guard the timber supply of the Nation. Clearly, the accomplish- 

 ment of this purpose through public acquisition and management 

 becomes necessary and is, therefore, justified only when and to the 

 extent that private ownership fails to accomplish it. An exact 

 appraisal at a given moment of the extent to which, and areas and 

 regions in which, private ownership will adequately redeem the 

 public interest in forest productivity, is beset by many difficulties 

 and is, indeed, virtually an impossibility. 



(4) A large area of wrecked, denuded, or badly depreciated forest 

 land, often designated as "no man's land" or "the new public 

 domain" is a special field for public ownership. Most of such 

 lands, are permanently submarginal for private ownership, since 

 they no longer produce current income, and eqruire capital invest- 

 ment, current expenditures, and a long wait for returns. Through 

 the process of tax delinquency and abandonment, many are revert- 

 ing to public ownership. 



Other lands in this class drift from owner to owner, each of whom 

 further depreciates the small values that may remain, and each in 

 turn gives up the effort. This process is definitely antagonistic to the 

 public interest and, so long as it continues, postpones any stability of 

 ownership or systematic attempt to manage the lands constructively 

 and restore their productivity. In most cases public ownership and 

 management of such land is coming to be recognized as the ultimate 

 and desirable solution. 



(5) At least 50 million acres of formerly forested land, which has 

 been used for agriculture, is no longer used for that purpose. Much of 

 this is likely to require public ownership, if for no other reason than to 

 remove it from the total of submarginal agricultural land, which is 

 only occasionally used as it drifts from owner to owner. This threat 

 to agriculture can be eliminated through controlled use for non- 

 agricultural purposes in public ownership. 



In the main, public ownership comes into the picture to protect 

 public values and interest on classes of land or in regions where 

 private ownership and practices have depreciated values, are de- 

 preciating, or are likely to depreciate them. Demonstration areas 

 and scenic and recreational areas of particularly significant value are 

 commonly acquired regardless of the intent or practices of private 

 owners. Public ownership is not then generally competitive with 

 private enterprise, but steps in when necessary to obtain results with 

 a certainty not obtainable otherwise. Traditional political thought 

 predominately holds that when private ownership applies the same 

 practices to forest land that public ownership does, the former is in 

 fact preferable. Public acquisition programs built on this clear-cut 



