A NATIONAL PLAN FOE AMERICAN FORESTRY 1563 



(12) The substitution of other materials for lumber, naval stores, 

 etc. 



(13) The trends of lumber and stumpage prices, and the principles 

 that govern such trends. 



(14) The place of productive forest-land use in the regional and 

 national economic and social structure as a whole. 



The need for information on these subjects justifies the recom- 

 mended average annual increases of $45,000 to reach the McSweeney- 

 McNary Act authorization of $250,000 a year by 1938, and of $25,000 

 for some years later. These increases would permit an expansion 

 of the work proportional to that provided for in other fields of forest 

 research. This need is sure to increase in urgency with the growing 

 use of forest lands for timber production and other purposes. Natur- 

 ally, the Federal results will be of great value to States and to private 

 timberland owners, many of whose most difficult problems are of an 

 economic nature. 



EROSION STREAM FLOW 



The need for studies of the relation of forest and other vegetative 

 cover of wild lands to the regularity of stream flow and to erosion is 

 presented in the section ''Research in the United States Forest Serv- 

 ice: A Study in Objectives." This need is found in the growing 

 importance of flood control hi the United States; in the heavy erosion 

 losses that have seriously reduced the productivity of enormous areas 

 and threaten to reduce other once fertile areas to desert ; in the critical 

 need for water, which is growing with the increase of agricultural, 

 municipal, power, and other demands; and in wide difference of 

 opinion as to whether forest and other cover is a decisive factor in 

 erosion and the regulation of stream flow. This difference of opinion 

 is reflected in radical differences in policy or an entire lack of policy 

 in the administration of public and private lands having watershed 

 values, and in the disregard of forest influences that characterizes 

 certain expenditures for flood control, improvement of navigation, 

 and construction of costly dams and storage reservoirs. Flood losses 

 hi American river valleys are estimated to be at least $40,000,000 a 

 year; river and harbor improvements by the Federal Government 

 have cost approximately $1,800,000,000 to date; and a difficult and 

 costly water-supply problem confronts many large cities. In the light 

 of such costs, the condition of the vegetative cover of watersheds 

 and the degree to which it can be modified to increase water storage, 

 regulate the run-off, and decrease erosion assume nation-wide im- 

 portance. 



No specific financial authorization of erosion and stream-flow 

 studies was included in the McSweeney-McNary Forest Research 

 Act. A bill pending in the Seventy-second Congress would add to 

 the act a new section authorizing annual appropriations for such 

 studies not to exceed $500,000. It is extremely desirable that the 

 full amount should become available by 1938, with annual increases 

 for the four years 1935-38 averaging $100,000. 



The values involved justify a further increase in the final 6 years 

 of the 10-year program. An outline of the needs for investigation of 

 stream flow and erosion problems in all the forest regions of the 

 United States has been prepared by the Forest Service. The investi- 



