A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1293 



TABLE 14. Private forest land areas recommended for eventual public ownership for 



watershed protection 



These regional recommendations totalling 114.2 million acres east 

 of the plains and 41 million in the West are necessarily approximations. 

 Only a very large additional amount of detailed field work could make 

 it possible to assert that the figures are accurate. As has been said 

 previously, existing situations, existing needs, and existing and prob- 

 able future trends in land use have had to be appraised in a very broad 

 manner in working out the recommended program. But the approxi- 

 mations do not obscure the fact that the needed public forest for 

 watershed protection of important areas in the East total many times 

 the old concepts and the existing programs of the States and the 

 Federal Government. The ultimate area of State forests in all of the 

 States east of the Plains, after full effect has been given to present 

 policies, will be not much over 5% million acres of major watershed 

 forests and fully four fifths of this will be in the Middle Atlantic region, 

 chiefly in New York and Pennsylvania. The national-forest pro- 

 grams as approved up to June 30, 1932, by the National Forest 

 Reservation Commission contemplates the purchase of 5,171,000 

 acres, which will bring the total national-forest area in the East, 

 managed primarily for watershed protection, up to approximately 10 

 million acres. This area, equivalent to 5.6 percent of the major-value 

 area of the East, will have required about 45 years to acquire if the 

 rate of acquisition to date continues. 



Including lands already acquired, the existing State and Federal 

 programs combined will finally total only slightly over 22.5 million 

 acres, spread over 244 million acres of major and moderate water- 

 shed-value land. Whether the recommended areas for public ac- 

 quisition are too high or too low is not the primary concern. It is, 

 rather, that we recognize the very large problem of watershed stabili- 

 zation, particularly in the East, and the fact that private-ownership 

 practices and unplanned land use have created the problem ; and that 

 we accept the fact that the public agencies must acquire areas far 

 greater than has generally been thought necessary. 



The program of public-forest acquisition, even if carried out prompt- 

 ly, will not in itself solve the whole of the watershed problem. Either 



