A NATIONAL PLAN FOB AMERICAN FORESTRY 1569 



completion of a national arboretum there and for its maintenance as a 

 research center. Efforts to accomplish this have hitherto been only 

 partially successful. By an act approved March 4, 1927 (44 Stat., 

 1422, U.S.C. Supp. VI, title 20, sees. 191-194), a sum not to exceed 

 $300,000 was authorized to be expended under the direction of the 

 Secretary of Agriculture for the acquisition of land within or adja- 

 cent to the District of Columbia " to establish and maintain a national 

 arboretum for purposes of research and education concerning tree and 

 plant life." The act specifies that the arboretum shall be adminis- 

 tered by the Secretary of Agriculture " separately from the agricultural, 

 horticultural, and forestry stations of the Department of Agriculture, 

 but it shall be so correlated with them as to bring about the most 

 effective utilization of its facilities and discoveries." A suitable tract 

 of land was found but the initial appropriation was sufficient to pur- 

 chase only a part of it, and further appropriations to round out the 

 purchase have not yet been forthcoming. The next step is to com- 

 plete the purchase program and provide such funds as may be needed 

 for research. 



FOREST RESEARCH BY THE STATES 



The States have good reasons to contribute substantially to forest 

 research. One reason is the responsibility for good administration of 

 State-owned forest land, which has reached a total of 16 million acres 

 and is increasing. An even more pressing reason is implied in the 

 444 million acres of privately owned forest and woodland, the good 

 or bad management of which is in many ways a powerful determining 

 influence upon State prosperity. 



Nearly every State has local forest problems that it can not expect 

 the Federal Government or any other agency to solve except in part. 

 These problems are of great variety, from those connected with the 

 planting, management, protection from fire, and utilization of the 

 forest to forest entomology, pathology, economics, the protection and 

 management of game and other wild life, and the use of the forest as 

 an agent in retarding erosion and regulating streamflow. The im- 

 portance of research to meet these problems and develop the many 

 functions of the forest has been emphasized in this section and other 

 sections of the present report. It justifies the belief that State con- 

 tributions for research should be in a measure proportionate to Federal 

 expenditures; that within about the next 10 years the States could 

 well afford to undertake a share in the forest-research program 

 amounting in the aggregate to $2,500,000 a year, which means an 

 average expenditure of $52,000 by each State. Some States, of 

 course, have much more at stake than others, so that the amounts 

 needed for research are very unequal. 



State agencies available for this research include the State forestry 

 administrative organizations; specialists in entomology, pathology, 

 wild life, or other subjects connected with other State departments; 

 State forest schools or forestry and other departments of State 

 universities and colleges; and State agricultural experiment stations. 

 The part to be taken by each of these agencies in State plans for 

 forest research is of course a matter for determination by individual 

 States. 



Expenditures of State forestry departments for forest research in 

 1932 were quoted in the section " State Accomplishments and Plans" 



