A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



1409 



TABLE 9. Average annual costs of protection on national-forest areas and cost per 

 acre by regions (average 1926-30} 



In table 10 the regional costs for the protection of national-forest 

 areas are segregated by the major elements. It will be noted that 

 the annual carrying charges and maintenance of improvement roads 

 and trails forms a Targe item of the fire-control costs in the national 

 forests, because vast inaccessible areas have to be broken up with a 

 transportation system for the movement of men and supplies. In 

 contrast to this, much of the territory outside of the national forests 

 is in the more settled and developed sections, where existing roads 

 already furnish the basic transportation system. Besides, new roads 

 in private and State protective units, even where their use for pro- 

 tection is important, are, as a rule, built chiefly for such uses as inter- 

 community travel and utilization and thus are not ordinarily included 

 in fire-control costs. 



TABLE 10. Annual cost of fire control on national forests, by regions (average 



1926-30} 



1 Annual carrying charges. 



Recognizing that per-acre costs will vary with the difficulty of the 

 fire-control job and the skill with which the work is done, and that 

 these differ between regions, the inescapable conclusion must be 

 drawn that in the main, where present burned-over areas materially 

 exceed the objective, the present scale of expenditures is inadequate. 



ADDITIONAL EXPENDITURES NEEDED 

 ON THE NATIONAL FORESTS 



During the past decade, painstaking studies of physical factors and 

 critical investigations of organization and methods have been made 

 for the national forests to determine both the needs and costs of an 

 adequate fire-control system. There is now in progress an additional 



