FOR A NATIONAL FORESTRY BILL 



THE National Forest Program Bill has been intro- 

 duced in the Senate and in the House. It is ex- 

 pected that hearings will be held before committees 

 of the Senate and House early in the year for the pur- 

 pose of presenting arguments in favor of the bill and 

 the prospects for its passage are very bright. The fact 

 that practically every interest concerned in forestry is in 

 favor of the bill in itself alone almost assures its success 

 as Congress can not well ignore a very general demand 

 for the adoption of such vitally important, sane and 

 practical legislation. 



The bill has now been endorsed by the following: 



American Forestry Association. 



United States Forest Service. 



Western Forestry and Conservation Association. 



Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. 



National Lumber Manufacturers' Association. 



National Wholesale Lumber Dealers' Association. 



American Paper and Pulp Association. 



American Newspaper Publishers' Association. 



Southern Pine Association. 



Association of Wood-Using Industries. 



National Forest Fire Protection Committee. 



The California White and Sugar Pine Association. 



Empire State Forest Products Association. 



New York City Federation of Women's Clubs, and 

 the forestry departments of seventeen states. 



The Chamber of Commerce of the United States is 

 asking its members to take a referendum on the subject 

 of endorsing the bill and it is expected that the business 

 interests of the country will unanimously call upon Con- 

 gress to pass the bill. 



A committee of representatives of the organizations 

 which have endorsed the bill has been formed. It is 

 called the National Forestry Program Committee, and 

 R. S. Kellogg, of New York, is the chairman. 



Every member of the American Forestry Association 

 is requested to personally urge the Senators of their 

 State and the Representatives from their districts to 

 give unqualified support to the bill. 



Of the need of the bill Colonel W. B. Greeley, United 

 States Forester, says in his annual report : 



"In the report of the Forester for the fiscal year 1919 

 my predecessor, Colonel Henry S. Graves, set forth the 

 urgency of a national forestry policy. During the major 

 part of the fiscal year covered by this report the move- 

 ment gathered headway under his leadership. Since his 

 resignation, on April 15, 1920, the movement has con- 

 tinued along the lines laid down by him, and the program 

 which he formulated has been further developed. 



"This program is based on the conviction that the prob- 

 lem of halting forest devastation is fundamentally a 

 national, not a local, problem, and must be faced and 

 handled as such. At the same time it is felt that the 

 speediest, surest, and most equitable action can be secured 

 through dependence on the police powers of the States 

 for the enforcement of such reasonable requirements as 



should be made of private owners and on the State 

 governments for providing organized protection of pri- 

 vate lands against fire. Because the problem itself is 

 essentially national that is, one affecting the public wel- 

 fare of the entire country and requiring to be attacked as 

 a whole, not piecemeal both Federal leadership and a 

 large measure of Federal aid are obligatory. It should 

 be obligatory upon private owners to apply the safe- 

 guards necessary to prevent devastation. There is a 

 practical unanimity of agreement that the first and most 

 -essential step is nation-wide protection from forest fires, 

 applicable to all classes of forest land and borne jointly 

 by the landowner and the public. 



"When the movement was inaugurated the chief effort 

 was directed toward laying the need for action before 

 those having first-hand knowledge of forest conditions 

 and most directly concerned in forest industries. Con- 

 ferences were held in various parts of the country with 

 representatives of the lumber, paper, and other forest- 

 using industries, and with State officers having to do 

 with forest matters. The widest discussion of the situa- 

 tion and the precise measures needed was invited. Inter- 

 est in the subject developed rapidly. Organizations of 

 the various industries dependent on forests for raw 

 material began to canvass the situation, in many cases 

 to appoint forestry committees and to formulate pro- 

 grams of their own. It was chiefly along these lines that 

 the movement advanced during the year, though there 

 was not lacking evidence of a decided awakening of 

 interest on the part of the public generally. To this the 

 acute shortage and skyrocketing prices of lumber and 

 newsprint, which marked the year, undoubtedly con- 

 tributed. 



"The crucial character of the forest situation of the 

 country was made more clear than ever before by the 

 results of a study made in the latter part of the year by 

 the Forest Service, in response to Senate resolution 311. 

 The results of this study were embodied in a report 

 entitled "Timber Depletion, Lumber Prices, Lumber 

 Exports, and Concentration of Timber Ownership," and 

 were submitted to the Senate on June 1. It was found 

 that over two-thirds of the original forests of the United 

 States have been culled, cut-over, or burnt, and three- 

 fifths of their merchantable timber is gone. The country 

 is taking about 26,000,000,000 cubic feet of wood annual- 

 ly from its forests and is growing but 6,000,000,000 feet. 

 We are cutting timber of every class, even trees too small 

 for the sawmill, much faster than they are being replaced 

 in our forests. 



"There are still large quantities of timber in the United 

 States, but they are not in the right place. Sixty-one 

 per cent of what is left lies west of the Great plains, far 

 from the bulk of our population, agriculture, and manu- 

 factures. The exhaustion of one forested region after 

 another in the Eastern States has been reflected in 

 rising transportation costs, in shortages of supply re- 

 sulting from the overloading of transport facilities, and in 



