A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1277 



The public can best fulfill its responsibilities by showing the owners 

 how they can improve their practices by assistance in marketing 

 forest products and by help in combating pests, diseases, and fires. 

 The fire risk, incidentally, generally will be much less than in the case 

 of the larger industrial forest tracts. It would not be practical for 

 the public to acquire any considerable area of woodland on estab- 

 lished farms, and there is little occasion to attempt it. 



In localities where a large proportion of the land is submarginal for 

 farming, and where many of the existing farms are consequently on 

 an unstable basis, the situation may be quite different. There a 

 large part of the land in farms is woodland (in naturally forested 

 regions) and the degree of farm abandonment is likely to be high. In 

 many instances the woodland is fairly well stripped of readily realiz- 

 able values before it is abandoned, so that there is little incentive for 

 other individuals to acquire it. In numerous localities of this sort the 

 maintenance of a forest -cover is important for protection of soil and 

 watersheds. The existence of widely scattered farms may entail 

 heavy expense for roads and schools that could be eliminated by 

 public acquisition of the land. In some localities there is both oppor- 

 tunity and justification for public acquisition of considerable areas of 

 farm woodland, along with the unwooded land that should be taken 

 out of agricultural use. Much of this kind of land is coming into 

 public ownership through tax delinquency. It may be desirable to 

 speed the process up and bring it about in a more orderly mnaner 

 and one less cruel to the landowners by deliberate purchase. 



An estimate of the probable future distribution of ownership for 

 woodlands on farms can only be an approximation. It is evident 

 that large areas of commercial forest land in all regions will eventually 

 come under public ownership and management. Definite public 

 forest units will naturally be blocked out, as they are now in the 

 purchasing of forest lands for State and Federal forest purposes. 

 Within these units, certainly abandoned agricultural lands and the 

 woodlands attached to them will come within the price range of 

 public purchase. It is reasonable to assume that other farm wood- 

 lands within the units, attached to operating farms, will to a large 

 extent be on the market, also. Tenant farming of hill farms those 

 within the future public forest purchase units is exceedingly com- 

 mon. The farm as a whole is of interest to the owner only as a source 

 of immediate revenue, which comes mainly from the acreage actually 

 farmed. It is to be expected that once the woodland is of interest 

 to a possible purchaser, it will be on the market. In many of the forest 

 regions, the woodland on farms is not an integral part of the farm 

 itself, and the operation of the farm land does not depend on the owner- 

 ship of the woodland. None of these general statements is universally 

 applicable. 



One basis for estimating the eventual public acquisition of farm 

 woodlands is to assume that the public will get the same proportion 

 as it is estimated to get of other private woodlands. In a very broad 

 way this means that within public forest units, the public will acquire 

 about the same proportion of both classes of private forest land 

 (table 7). 



On this basis the total area of private land which may eventually 

 come into public ownership for forest purposes is 115 million acres 

 from commercial forest owned by other than farmers, 50 million 



