A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1301 



capital investment. Land acquisition is clearly a capital investment; 

 its management is largely a current expense. 



As State finances are reexamined and reoriented from this stand- 

 point, the place of land-acquisition programs may well be even more 

 favorable than they are today. 



SUMMARY 



That major shifts of forest land from private to public ownership 

 are imminent is shown by the fact that tax delinquency is already 

 widespread. Farm woodlands, acquired as an incidental part of farm 

 properties, naturaUy are abandoned when farming is given up, and 

 this has occurred on more than 50 miUion acres. Other forest prop- 

 erties, acquired for their immediately exploitable timber values, must 

 be reappraised by the owner when his income depends on long-term 

 timber growing, rather than short- time exploitation. The public 

 must be prepared to take over large areas of forest land as private 

 ownership withdraws from management or ownership. 



For the National Government and many of the States public 

 ownership and management of forest lands is already established in 

 law, in public opinion, and in fact. Public ownership has more and 

 more supplanted the alternative methods of "laissez faire," public 

 aid, or public regulation. In general, it appears that these other 

 methods are less certain of desired results than is public ownership. 



Public ownership of forest lands for watershed protection, timber 

 production, recreation, and wild life is already well established, as a 

 means to protect public values when private ownership cannot or 

 will not do so. 



The basis for division of ownership between State and Federal 

 Government is not clear-cut. Some of the wealthy States have State 

 forests of the same kinds of lands and for the same purposes as the 

 national forests. Less wealthy States have done little or nothing in 

 forest-land ownership, regardless of needs or opportunities. Finan- 

 cial ability of the States is the best guide to what part of the public 

 ownership job each is likely to do, and therefore as to the remaining 

 part which the Federal Government must do, if it is done at all. 



An analysis of the opportunity for private forestry by major 

 regions indicates, that perhaps 85 percent of the forest land is likely 

 to stay in private ownership in the most favorable regions and perhaps 

 not over 10 percent in the least favorable. It is estimated that out 

 of the 270 million acres of other than farm woodland, about 115 million 

 acres (84 in the East and 31 in the West) is likely to become a public- 

 ownership problem because of lack of private opportunity. Even 

 the most liberal public aid in fire control has not kept unattractive 

 lands in private ownership. 



Existing formal plans of the States and the Federal Government 

 contemplate eventual total public acquisition of not over 13 million 

 acres by the former and 30 million acres by the latter. This is very 

 much less than the area which seems unlikely to be retained and 

 managed by private ownership. 



The Nation's watersheds contain 449 million acres of forest land 

 of high and medium value in the control of run-off and erosion. The 

 watershed studies show widespread, and in many regions critical, 

 depreciation of the watershed lands. A great deal of abandoned 

 agricultural land as well as forest land enters into the problem which 



