1332 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Whether the Federal Government shall engage in forestry activities 

 designed to promote the public welfare through the medium of State 

 functioning or through that of direct Federal functioning, or through 

 formal agreements outlined by Congress, or through informal arrange- 

 ments, depends on the exigencies of different situations. In any case, 

 the objective remains the same. The real question is simply of the 

 best way to get the job done. 



It is again emphasized, therefore, that the following suggested pro- 

 gram for direct financial aid by the Federal Government to the 

 States and private owners and by the States to private owners in- 

 cludes only the smaller part of the whole program, and covers far 

 from all of the cooperative undertakings that it is expected will be 

 carried on. Neither does the private owners' share, as indicated by 

 the attached tables, indicate all that they will do under the program. 

 In protection against fire, for example, the interested private owner 

 supplies a large share of the protection effort, although that does not 

 appear as a cash expenditure. It cannot, therefore, be accounted for 

 in a cooperative fiscal arrangement, or in a statement of moneys 

 expended. 



The sections of this report entitled "Federal Financial and Other 

 Direct Aid to States" and " State Aid to Private Owners and Local 

 Political Units" set forth in considerable detail the accomplishments 

 to date under the Federal and State-aid systems for fire protection, 

 planting, and management of farm woodlands. Similarly, the section 

 entitled " Factors Affecting Federal and State Aid" discusses the 

 several factors that have affected these accomplishments, their rela- 

 tion to each other, and their bearing on past and probable bearing on 

 future progress. 



AID IN PROTECTION AGAINST FIRE 



The Federal program of financial aid to States and private owners 

 begun in 1911 under the Weeks Act was designed to insure the con- 

 tinuous production of timber on the bulk of forest lands. It was 

 hoped that a Federal contribution equivalent to 25 percent of current 

 national needs for fire protection with an equal amount from the 

 States would lend sufficient encouragement to private owners that 

 they would go forward with plans to retain and manage their forest 

 lands as continuous timber-producing properties. 



Sufficient time has not elapsed for full realization of benefits from 

 the act of 1911 and the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924, particularly 

 since Federal appropriations have averaged only about 50 percent of 

 the amount contemplated in the Clarke-McNary Act. In most of the 

 wealthier States, however, fire and other protection measures have 

 been advanced at a rate that indicates a healthy situation as to pro- 

 tection, very largely at State expense. All but one of the forested 

 States have organized fire protection work with some contribution 

 from public funds, but in many of those with relatively large acreages 

 of forest lands the funds so far provided are very far from adequate 

 for the job. 



Owners of commercial stands of timber in the Northwest have con- 

 tinued to give a fair degree of protection to these properties with such 

 aid as they have received from the Federal Government and the 

 States. In the remainder of the country private expenditures for 



