C. FORCES MAKING FOR THE DESTRUCTION OR PRESERVA- 

 TION OF NATURAL AREAS 



1. FOREST LAWS AND REGULA- 

 TIONS AND THE PRESERVATION 

 OF NATURAL CONDITIONS 



BY R. B. MILLER 



I. POSSIBILITY OP PRESERVING NATURAL 

 CONDITIONS UNDER PUBLIC AS COM- 

 PARED WITH PRIVATE OWNERSHIP 



While perhaps no state or national 

 forest laws deal directly with the pres- 

 ervation of natural conditions, there 

 are many forces working indirectly 

 to that end. At least, natural condi- 

 tions have a much better chance of 

 being preserved under public than under 

 private ownership, coupled as it is 

 with the danger of changing policies, 

 with fire, grazing and over-cutting. 

 In fact, the failure of private initiative 

 to properly protect its holdings is one 

 of the main reasons given for increasing 

 our acreage in national, state, county 

 and municipal forests. 



Since the relation of fires to plant and 

 animal life is discussed by Wolcott 

 (page 34) and Korstian deals with 

 grazing on the national forests, (page 

 33) we may say just a word about 

 cutting regulations and their effect 

 upon the preservation of natural con- 

 ditions. On state forests there are 

 usually some restrictions as to the size 

 of trees which may be cut and certain 

 laws as to brush-disposal, leaving of 

 seed trees or size of trees to be cut. 

 Naturally, cutting by the shelterwood 

 and selection methods do much less 

 damage to soil and reproduction by too 

 sudden exposure to the drying effects 

 of the sun and wind than does clear 

 cutting, which in some cases may be 

 the wisest financial policy. 



On the national forests, cutting regu- 

 lations are enforced by a workable 

 policy- the requiring of the operator 

 to pay an additional price for his timber 

 when he does not conform to the pro- 

 visions of the timber-sale contract, 

 with the cancelling of the agreement 

 in extreme cases of violation of the 

 cutting regulations. 



If the purchaser of timber does not 

 wish to follow Forest Service regula- 

 tions, he has the choice of doing his 

 logging elsewhere, probably paying 

 more for his stumpage while he is not 

 assured of a perpetual supply of timber 

 for his mill as he is when he depends 

 upon government owned timber. As 

 Korstian 1 points out, the forester will 

 soon be dealing almost wholly with cut- 

 over timber lands and to him the great- 

 est value of preserving natural condi- 

 tions lies in setting aside the best of 

 these tracts, which nature has left. 

 The chief purpose of these natural 

 areas will be for comparison and stand- 

 ardization. The chance for having the 

 greatest number of such tracts for 

 object lessons lies in national and 

 state ownership of timber in many 

 typical regions. 



II. EXTENT TO WHICH FOREST LAWS 



MAKE POSSIBLE PERMANENT 



SAMPLE PLOTS 



It is generally recognized that per- 

 manent sample plots are essential to 

 good forestry practice, serving not only 

 as places for carrying on certain lines 

 of research such as experiments in cut- 



1 Korstian, C. F. "The preservation of natural 

 conditions in the national forests." This volume, 

 p. 17. 



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