1334 A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



stands and to create conditions that will result in the maximum 

 natural restocking and growth and the minimum drain from fire, 

 insects, and disease. Another most important need is the encour- 

 agement of cutting practices for the dual purpose of increasing pro- 

 ductive capacity of the land and income from it. It is not believed 

 that these needs can be fully satisfied without largely increased 

 public ownership or public regulation, or both, but pending accom- 

 plishments through these means it is important at once to extend 

 the necessary protection to all forest lands regardless of ownership. 



The system of cooperative protection inaugurated by the Weeks 

 Law of 1911 and expanded by the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 has in 

 the main worked out well and, as shown by previous sections of this 

 report, great progress has been made under it; but, as also shown, 

 the progress has been unequal in the different sections of the United 

 States. 



Obviously, any Federal-aid system which matches State funds on a 

 definite ratio applicable to all of the States will result in a Federal 

 contribution to the better-financed States larger in proportion to total 

 needs than that to the poorer or more backward States. The extreme 

 of this in fire protection is illustrated by a comparison of State and 

 private expenditure in the middle Atlantic and southern regions. In 

 the middle Atlantic region State and private expenditures were in 1932 

 equivalent to about 90 percent of total average needs; to this was 

 added Federal participation equal to 17 percent of the total current 

 protection expenditures, thus providing funds more than equivalent 

 to the average needs for an adequate system of protection. In the 

 South, State and private expenditures do not exceed 8 percent of the 

 present needs (intermediate objective), and if Federal funds were 

 allotted in the same ratio to actual expenditures as in the Northeast, 

 Federal allotments would in 1932 have equaled only about 3 percent of 

 needs as compared with about 17 percent in the Middle Atlantic 

 States. Thus the large share of Federal appropriations would have 

 been spent in the States best able to take care of their forest lands, 

 and a smaller share in those whose forest acreage consists in large part 

 of cut-over lands which in their present condition are not attractive 

 to private interests and furnish a meager tax base on which the State 

 can raise needed revenues. 



The above situation has been in part met in the past by the Federal 

 system of allotting to each State up to 8 or 9 percent of its total needs, 

 provided that it is spending enough annually to match the Federal 

 allotment on a 50-50 basis. Federal funds remaining after this allot- 

 ment is made are then divided among the States in which fire-protec- 

 tion expenditures go beyond this minimum, in the ratio that their 

 further expenditures bear to the total of all of the States. 



Under the policy of limiting assistance to 25 percent of total current 

 costs, the Federal Government has lagged behind rather than led 

 the States and private owners in protection effort. So long as Federal 

 appropriations are held to 25 percent of total actual expenditure, 

 instead of being adjusted on the basis of total needed expenditure, 

 Federal assistance at the higher ratio which some State needs require 

 can only be given by the method of allotting less than 25 percent to 

 other States. On the other hand, if the ratio of Federal to total 

 expenditure were to be increased from 25 to 50 percent or any higher 

 percentage, the result would be, as was pointed out in Factors Affecting 



