1508 



A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 



t The public necessity for improving watershed conditions and stop- 

 ping stream-channel silting requires the planting of much land now in 

 private ownership. The alternative to private initiative stimulated 

 by public aid is recourse to public regulation which with barren land 

 might mean expropriation or merely another form of public acquisi- 

 tion. With all of these factors in mind the approximation of responsi- 

 bility by broad ownership classes shown in table 9 seems logical. It 

 makes no claim for accuracy but will be helpful in crystallizing in some 

 degree the comparative parts of the program which each group of 

 agencies should undertake. Comprehensive land classification or its 

 equivalent must be greatly speeded up in order that a sound basis for 

 the selection of specific areas to plant and for the determination of the 

 most equitable division of responsibility may be had. 



TABLE 9. Areas proposed to be planted by various agencies, and cash expenditures 



involved in planting 



1 Including State, county, and municipal. 



2 Estimate based on assumption that farm planting will cost only one third as much per acre as planting 

 by public agencies, owing to availability of stock at less than production cost and to use of regularly em- 

 ployed farm labor in slack seasons for planting. 



3 Including industrial planting by timber companies, power companies, etc. 



4 Including part of the land proposed for acquisition by 1950. 



Estimate based on assumption that cost to planters will be reduced $2 per acre by State and Federal aid. 



