A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 1349 



fire protection, slash disposal, methods of insuring natural or artificial 

 restocking, methods of cutting (percentage of stand to cut, conditions 

 under which clear cutting is permissible, etc.), and restrictions on 

 grazing. Provision should be made for the reforestation of land which 

 is already denuded, including abandoned crop and pasture land, where 

 a forest cover is needed for protective purposes. 



Within the limitations prescribed, an owner would be free to cut 

 when, where, and as he pleased, and no permit would be necessary. 

 Sustained yield management would not be required. 



To facilitate inspection of the cutting, the authorities should be 

 notified each year in cases where an area larger than 5 acres is to be 

 cut over. In order to protect the operator, at least in the larger 

 operations, he should be allowed to submit a plan of work covering 

 method of cutting, slash disposal, provisions for fire protection, etc. 

 Upon approval of this plan, with such modification as might be agreed 

 upon, and as long as he operates in accordance with it, he should be 

 considered as complying with the law and should be free from further 

 restrictions. The Board should reserve the right, however, in case of 

 any material change in conditions, or in case the operation should be 

 evidently resulting in destruction of the protective value of the forest, 

 to require changes in methods, after due notice and hearing. Cutting 

 operations should be inspected regularly, and the inspectors should 

 have power to stop operations where the requirements are not being 

 complied with. 



ENFORCEMENT AGENCY 



The application and enforcement of public control over Federal 

 protection forests, other than those owned by the Federal Government, 

 might be carried out by agents of the Federal Board. In Sweden the 

 foresters attached to the county boards (local boards also) are respon- 

 sible for seeing that the regulations are complied with. They are 

 entirely independent of the State forest service, which confines its 

 activities to management of the public forests. In this country, 

 however, it would probably be better to have the Forest Service act 

 as the enforcement agency. The Service already has a certain degree 

 of responsibility for the promotion of private forestry and maintains 

 a staff of inspectors in connection with cooperative fire protection and 

 distribution of planting stock under the Clarke-McNary law. More- 

 over, the protection forest zones will embrace not only a large propor- 

 tion of the existing national forests but also large areas now in 

 private ownership which probably will sooner or later be added to 

 the national-forest system. It does not seem to be either necessary 

 or desirable, therefore, to create a separate agency whose functions 

 would to some extent parallel or overlap those already performed by 

 the Forest Service. 



PUBLIC OBLIGATIONS ACCOMPANYING PUBLIC 

 REGULATION 



As has been pointed out, a forest owner is not legally or morally 

 entitled to compensation for refraining from acts which would directly 

 injure the persons or property of others. Elimination or avoidance 

 of fire hazard resulting from his own operations should be entirely at 

 his own expense. At the same time, however, he is entitled to expect 



