528 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



the public benefits of forest protection and forestry, and in most regions the 

 opposition is being replaced by approval of the government's policy. 



There is nevertheless still a very powerful opposition to national forestry 

 and to the Forest Service. There are still many who would see the national 

 forests entirely abolished and the old regime of unregulated exploitation of 

 the nation's resources reestablished. This opposition to the Federal policy 

 comes from two different sources. The first is the spasmodic local opposition 

 due to difficulties arising in the local administration. These difficulties are 

 usually adjusted without grave difficulty and the cause of the opposition 

 disappears. The second source of opposition is of a more permanent character 

 and comes from those who are fundamentally opposed to the idea of regulating 

 the use of the nation's resources for the public benefit. 



The national forest policy has received a great impulse through the passage 

 of the Appalachian and White Mountain bill by Congress. This measure 

 enables the Federal government to participate in the solution of the forest 

 problem in the eastern mountains not merely through general advice to private 

 owners, but through actual ownership and management of public forests. It 

 is not expected that the government will be able to purchase all of the mountain 

 areas which should be protected and handled mainly in the public interest. 

 It will be possible, however, even with the appropriations already made, to 

 establish a number of national forests on imiwrtant watersheds which will 

 serve as a nucleus for the development of forestry over large surrounding 



regions. 



STATE FORESTS 



The government has at different times made very extensive grants of public 

 lands to the States. Thus in some of the states the government has, in addition 

 to special grants, given two sections in every township, and in several states 

 four sections in every township. It is estimated that something over nine 

 million acres of the state lands are forested. Heretofore the policy of the 

 public land states, except Minnesota, has been to dispose of their holdings 

 as rapidly as possible by sale to private individuals. While in several of the 

 public land states there is now an effort to protect the state forests from fire, 

 but little progress has been made in the adoption of a policy of retaining these 

 lands permanently for forest purposes. One reason why this policy has not 

 been adopted is because the state lands are not in a solid body and are there- 

 fore difficult to administer. One of the most urgent needs is legislation which 

 will enable the public land states to make exchanges for government lands and 

 thereby consolidate their holdings into single large state forest reserves which 

 can be handled with a view to permanent forestry. Bills have at various 

 times been introduced in the Congress, looking to this result, but they have 

 been consistently defeated, although it is obvious that both the government and 

 the individual states would be enormously benefitted by such exchanges : 



In the East just as in the West the states have disposed of their lands just 

 as rapidly as purchasers could be found. They are now waking up to the 

 realization that such a policy was a mistaken one and that the disposal of 

 state lands should be confined to those of agricultural value and the timber 

 lands in the mountains which must be handled conservatively for the protection 

 of the public should be reserved in public ownership. The states are now begin- 

 ning to recover by purchase those lands which should never have been parted 

 with. There are now about three million acres of state forest reserves, dis- 

 tributed as follows: 



