1290 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



inflexible guide can be set up, but in most cases units containing less 

 than 100,000 acres of potentially obtainable land should be of note- 

 worthy importance and value to justify consideration as public pur- 

 chase units for watershed protection. However, in cases where 

 intensive management for forest production, or outstanding demons- 

 stration value or recreational value will be combined with watershed 

 protection value, the minimum size of units can often be materially 

 lower than 100,000 acres. 



In several of the Central States, relatively narrow bands of badly 

 eroding land along the main rivers offer a problem not previously 

 met in public forest acquisition in this country. The area of land in 

 each unit would be relatively small, and new problems of adminis- 

 tration would develop. Nevertheless, the urgency of stabilizing these 

 " breaks" is so high that some form of public acquisition and manage- 

 ment is clearly needed. 



THE OBJECTIVE OF PUBLIC FOREST ACQUISITION 



The principle that within public purchase units, not less than 35 

 percent of the total watershed value land should eventually be 

 acquired, applies with the greatest force to the plans of public agencies 

 for the individual major watersheds. If a given river has on its 

 watershed say 30 million acres of land which is depreciating under 

 private ownership, the highest possible type of public management on 

 one or two or three million acres can hardly stabilize the watershed as 

 a whole. In considering a given unit, the public is not justified in 

 going in at all unless it can expect to acquire a major holding. If the 

 field for eventual public ownership is sharply limited, public entrance 

 is probably unwarranted. 



The same consideration applies in the consideration of watersheds 

 of individual streams. Either public ownership should contemplate 

 an eventual large share in the total area needing protection, or it 

 should keep out. The objective of watershed protection is to stabilize 

 the stream as a whole, and is not primarily to stabilize particular 

 areas of land. 



The early concept was that a few public forests on the headwaters 

 of major streams would do the job of watershed stabilization. Ex- 

 perience on the western watersheds shows unmistakably that all of 

 the land on a watershed must be given proper treatment, or the bene- 

 ficial effects obtained on 50 or 60 percent of the land will be seriously 

 depreciated. The lower areas are, in several cases, partly nullifying 

 the effectiveness of national forests on headwaters. The exceedingly 

 critical erosion on the "breaks" of the Mississippi, Ohio, and Mis- 

 souri Rivers is by no stretch of the imagination a " headwaters" 

 problem. All or a very high proportion of the land in a drainage 

 basin as a whole must be recognized as the field for planned and con- 

 servative land management. 



Clearly the greater the public values at stake, the greater the ur- 

 gency for public acquisition and management. Where public^ funds 

 have been or are to be invested in constructing reservoirs or in im- 

 proving navigation, unrestricted silting due to erosion within the 

 watershed, will obviously shorten the life of the public improvements, 

 and wipe out some of the capital investment. Protection of water- 



