SNELL FORESTRY BILL HEARINGS 



1>I appearing before the House Committee on Agricul- 

 ture, at the hearings during the week of January 9 on 

 the Snell bill providing for joint Federal and State ac- 

 tion to check forest devastation and insure permanent 

 timber supplies, Col. W. B. Greeley, Chief of the Forest 

 Service, urged inuiicdiate action by Congress to insure a 

 continuance of timber growth on lands best suited to this 

 use. 



"I am not appearing as a proponent of any particular 

 bill," said Col. Greeley. "I am testifying in my capacity 

 as head of the National Forest Service. My purpose is to 

 urge upon the committee the need for Federal legislation 

 of some comprehensive character to reforest the tim- 

 berlands of the United States hitherto cut or now in pro- 

 gress of being cut ; and to discuss the various forms 

 which such legislation may take. 



"Federal legislation is needed because the United 

 States is now consuming wood four times as fast as it is 

 being grown. Enormous areas of the virgin forests have 

 been converted into lands largely or wholly unproduct- 

 ive. Two-thirds of the lumber users in the United 

 States now pay more per thousand feet in lumber freight 

 alone than they paid for the delivered commodity 30 

 years ago. The country faces definitely a growing scarc- 

 ity and increasing cost of everything made from wood. 

 The problem is nation-wide and must be dealt with in a 

 nation-wide way. 



"The definite aim. of Federal legislation on this sub- 

 ject must be to make sure that all forest lands in the 

 United States, whatever their ownership, afe kept con- 

 tinuously productive ; that as fast as one crop of timber 

 is cut another is started. By this means and by this 

 means only can the needs of the country be adequately 

 met. There is no lack of forest land, if all not needed 

 for agriculture can be kept at work producing wood. Fed- 

 eral legislation must aim at restoring forest land now idle 

 to productive use and at preventing land now bearing 

 merchantable timber or young growth from becoming 

 idle through forest fires or destructive methods of log- 



"These results can in part be accomplished by extend- 

 ing the National Forests to include all Government- 

 owned or Government-controlled lands chiefly valuable 

 for growing timber or protecting watersheds, and 

 through an enlarged purchase policy, particularly of 

 denuded lands now privately owned and desirable for 

 puUic ownership. State and municipal ownership 

 should also be encouraged. But public agencies mani- 

 festly can not acquire even a major portion of all the 

 forest land in the country. If is- now 79 per cent in 

 private ownership, and will largely remain so. 



"Federal legislation should encourage tree planting 

 by co-operation with States in growing and distributing 

 planting stock ; it should not only encourage but assist 

 in cfTcctive nation-wide protection of all forest lands 

 from fire : and it should also set up some method of reas- 

 onable public control over the cutting of private timber, 



to the extent necessary to insure prompt reforestation 

 of the lands cut over. 



"Such a program involves putting private forest lands 

 in the class with public utilities. We must recognize 

 a dominant public interest in the way in which this form 

 of private property is used. 



"It must, however, be recognized with equal force that 

 tirnber can not be grown unless the undertaking is a 

 practicable and reasonable one for the owner. Growing 

 timber is an economic matter. Reasonable and equitable 

 aid must be given the private owner in accomplishing 

 the public benefits desired, and such conditions of securi- 

 ty must be created as will make it economically feas- 

 ible for him to comply with public requirements. 



"Various State laws have already applied the princi- 

 ple of public control Oregon, Minnesota, New Hamp- 

 shire, and Louisiana, for example. But we are very 

 far from a uniform or consistent application of this 

 principle. To bring that about, by one means or another, 

 must be one of the important features of Federal legis- 

 lation. 



"Two methods for exercising public control to insure 

 the continuous productivity of forest lands have been 

 advocated in measures now before Congress. Sections 1 

 and 2 of the Snell bill would authorize the Department 

 of Agriculture to define and establish what is necessary 

 in each region, and through financial co-operation to en- 

 courage the enactment and enforcement of such neces- 

 sary measures by the several States, through the police 

 power. The Capper bill would accomplish the same pur- 

 pose by direct Federal authority through the taxing 

 power of the national Government." 



After pointing out that each of these alternative prop- 

 ositions has its strengths and its weaknesses. Col. Greeley 

 continued : 



"These two principles are supplementary rather than 

 opposing. I favor some immediate enactment in line 

 with the principle expressed in .the first two sections of 

 the Snell bill, and I do not believe the country is now 

 ready for the other step. But immediate action is ur- 

 gent. Among advocates of a National Forest policy 

 there is disagreement only on the one point as to whether 

 the States or the Federal Government should exercise 

 control over the cutting of timberlands. It may not be 

 desirable or opportune to attempt a complete National 

 forestry policy in one piece of legislation. 



"It would be unfortunate in the extreme to permit sub- 

 stantial progress in Federal legislation on forestry to 

 be delayed or impaired by a conflict of views on one fea- 

 ture only of the whole program. I wish to suggest that 

 the committee consider the wisdom of drafting a bill 

 covering the following points : 



"(1) Broader authority and authorization of adequate 

 appropriations for Federal co-operation with the States 

 in fire protection. In my judgment this outweighs all 

 other measures in immediate importance. 



