1492 A NATIONAL FLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



supply of labor is probably permanent. New opportunities will have 

 to be found for this surplus labor or the present opportunities for labor 

 will have to be further spread out by decreased working hours per 

 person. This may mean the general adoption of the 5-day work week, 

 the 6-hour day, or the staggering of employment periods. In any 

 event, the solution seems to indicate more leisure time for people 

 generally. If this is true, the present rapid increase in outdoor recre- 

 ation is likely to be accentuated and provision to care for it must be 

 made. 



The present extent of recreational use can be partially gaged by 

 the fact that the national forests were used by 30 million people and 

 the national parks by 3 million people in 1931. The extent of use of 

 more local forested areas can only be approximated. That hunting 

 alone now draws more than 6 million people into the forest each year 

 is indicated by the record of licenses sold. 



The present problem is that of providing desirable recreational 

 areas close to centers of population so that they can be enjoyed by 

 people with only a few hours, or at most a week-end, at their disposal. 

 The planting of denuded or abandoned land within easy reach of 

 cities may supply this need and incidentally build up new business 

 enterprises in order to meet the needs of these recreationists. The 

 new forests established in localities where forest cover is scarce will 

 create or improve game cover and game food and will increase the 

 pleasure of those who prefer hunting as a means of recreation. 



The extent to which forest planting can go in furnishing productive 

 work for the unemployed depends largely on the size of the planting 

 program under way. The fact that some time must lapse between 

 seed collection and field planting and the fact that forest nursery 

 management is a highly specialized kind of land use would seem to 

 argue against extreme fluctuation in the program from year to year. 

 Over 80 percent of the planting expenditure from seed collection 

 through field planting is for unskilled labor. The substitution of 

 useful work such as this instead of charity for the unemployed is of 

 course very desirable. 



Some answer to the civic problem presented by devastated forest 

 land and submarginal agricultural land is badly needed. Many 

 communities which were once prosperous because of agriculture or 

 lumbering are now rapidly approaching bankruptcy. In New York 

 State nearly 3 million acres of land has been abandoned in the past 

 10 years. Tax delinquency of marginal lands is everywhere common 

 and promises to increase, yet the public improvements made during 

 the period of exploitation remain to be maintained by fewer and 

 fewer local taxpayers. As the amount of idle land increases the 

 resources with which to meet current civic obligations decreases. 



A part of the answer seems to be closely associated with forest 

 planting. Land classification, including economic investigations, 

 should be undertaken to determine the highest usefulness of the land. 

 In many instances the solution will probably be complete depopulation 

 of considerable areas through taking advantage of tax delinquency 

 supplemented by public acquisition. The areas thus blocked up in 

 public ownership should be converted to forests by planting where 

 necessary in order to protect the watersheds, improve recreation 

 possibilities, and produce a future crop of timber. Unnecessary 



