A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1289 



Public agencies engaged in acquiring forest units for watershed 

 protection need to know in advance about what proportion of the 

 total area needing protection can be acquired at reasonable unit costs. 

 The acquisition of land for forest is limited in the main to woodlands, 

 either those on farms or in other ownership, and to farm land which 

 has been abandoned for farming purposes, or is used merely as wild or 

 uncultivated pasture. With few exceptions, hill farms in active use 

 for crop land or cultivated pasture, are unavailable for public pur- 

 chase, simply because unit prices are generally very materially higher 

 than for other classes of land. 



The reports on major watersheds recite numerous areas in which 

 erosion brought on by cultivation of slopes is not only ruining the 

 soils for agricultural cropping, but is contributing in a serious degree 

 to irregular run-off and silting of rivers. The problem of sloping lands 

 actively used for agriculture is not, however, to any significant degree 

 one susceptible of immediate solution through forestry. As hill lands 

 become seriously eroded through the practice of unwise agriculture, 

 they tend to drop out of any but the most extensive agricultural use, 

 and come within the price range of public agencies. The basic princi- 

 ple in public acquisition for watershed protection necessarily has to 

 be, in general, to acquire the greatest number of acres having high 

 watershed value, rather than to acquire particular areas. 



In analyzing particular watershed areas as possible purchase units, 

 any public agency must, therefore, reckon the lands potentially 

 obtainable as including only the three classes mentioned. No 

 definite and fixed percentage of ownership within a unit can well be 

 set as marking the minimum public holding which would accomplish 

 watershed protection to the degree justifying a long-continued public 

 project. The higher the probable percentage of acquisition, the bet- 

 ter. A few of the western national forests contain only about 40 

 percent of public land, and yet are effective in accomplishing the 

 public purposes for which they were established. Administration of 

 such forest units, though complicated by the alienations, is feasible. 

 Units of smaller size, such as parts of ranger districts, commonly have 

 25 percent only of public land. 



It seems reasonable to use 35 percent of potentially obtainable land 

 as the limit below which public acquisition of lands for watershed 

 protection would rarely go. This guide is simply an approximation, 

 useful in analyzing the opportunities for public forestry in some of the 

 major drainages of the eastern and central forest regions. 



Experience to date with public forests shows that the beneficial 

 effects are not confined to the lands actually in public ownership. 

 The systematic fire control on public forests is necessarily extended to 

 intermingled private lands, so that in this respect the entire area 

 within a public forest is usually treated as a unit. Where grazing of 

 domestic livestock is a use of the public lands, cooperative arrange- 

 ments are gradually worked out so that conservative grazing on private 

 as well as public lands is brought about. 



A further factor limiting the initiation of public acquisition pro- 

 grams is that units need to be of fair size before economical and effectve 

 administration is possible. A lone unit containing say 50,000 acres 

 would require a resident forest officer to protect it against trespass and 

 fire, and handle current business. If a part-time employee was used, 

 the effectiveness of public ownership might readily be lessened. No 



