COLONEL GRAVES ON THE SNELL BILL 



pOL. HENRY S. GRAVES, former chief of the 

 ^-^ United States Forest Service, who was invited by 

 the AgricuUural Committee to give his views on a na- 

 tional forest pohcy during the hearings on the Snell 

 forestry bill, gave evidence at length to the members 

 of the committee. He made, in addition to answering 

 the questions of the committee, the following state- 

 ments : 



"The accomplishrrents in forestry which we already 

 have secured have beeti so far largely the result of 

 public effort. That is very proper because the public 

 must first of all provide for the right handling of the 

 forest properties which it owns itself, setting an example 

 for other owners, and the public has certain responsi- 

 bilities in taking such action as is essential to remove 

 some of the obstacles which are very real in the way 

 of the practice of forestry on private lands. Private 

 owners in many places have cooperated with the Gov- 

 ernment and the States in these public efforts. In some 

 places they have not lent such cooperation, and forestry 

 has been to that extent retarded on the public side. 



"You have now been told that the public should go a 

 great deal further and should embark on a broad policy 

 which will really reach some phases of working out the 

 forest problem which we have hardly touched, and to 

 make the entire undertaking more effective all along the 

 line, and some of the features of public effort which are 

 being advocated are primarily for public purposes, quite 

 regardless of their relation to private forests. Some 

 of these are included in the measure before you. I re- 

 fer, for example, to the extension of the national forests, 

 extensions to include larger areas that are now in the 

 public domain, and their extension through purchase. I 

 refer to such measures as would increase the efficiency of 

 the Government in its own work, assistance to the states 

 in primary public measures. Some of these measures 

 which are advocated and have to do primarily with pub- 

 lic efforts without reference to private purchases will 

 have a very great bearing on the question of private 

 policy, as for instance the public forests will have a 

 large influence on the practicability of private forestry 

 in this vicinity, through centers of cooperation and fire 

 protection, through demonstrations of methods and in 

 other ways. 



"We propose to go still further and undertake to work 

 out some method by which our private forests can be 

 better handled, will be perpetuated and will in the long 

 run render the service which is essential. 



"The ])roblem of forestry cannot be passed up entirely 

 to the public. Even if we have a very ambitious pro- 

 gram of public forests we still have got to rely very 

 largely on private forests for our timber supply and for 

 other service of the forests. I presume that today not 

 over 5 per cent of the lumber on the market comes from 

 the ])ublic forests. The rest comes from the private 

 forests. As time goes on this ratio will change, but 

 there always will be a very considerable part of the 



material used by our country that comes from the for- 

 ests which will have to be derived from private lands. 



"While there is a good deal of difference of opinion 

 as to the exact stejjs which you can take to bring about 

 the better practice of forestry on private lands, I be- 

 lieve every one is agreed all are agreed that it is 

 going to require a broad and liberal policy on the part 

 of the public to work out any comprehensive and prac- 

 tical program. 



"Any program is going to involve a lot of public money 

 on the part of the Federal Government and on the part 

 of the States. I believe such ex])enditures are neces- 

 sary and are justified by the magnitude of the interests 

 involved, but the public, in my opinion, is not going to 

 api)ropriate those moneys unless they have a clear un- 

 derstanding of the reasons why they are essential, an 

 understanding of what returns, public returns are ex- 

 pected, and a definite assurance that the actual objects 

 will be accomplished in practice. 



"I do not think that the Snell bill gives that definite 

 assurance. This, like other methods, calls for a large 

 program and large expenditures of public money, and 

 this measure, (if this plan were adopted) or any other 

 measure, if it is going to have the practical backing of 

 the country sufficient to warrant the expenditure of 

 funds from the public treasury, has got to have the 

 assurance that forestry is going to be carried on on 

 private lands to the extent that measures will be adopted 

 which will fully safeguard the public interests. It is 

 for that reason that if this measure is to be adopted, 

 in my opinion there should be injected into it an en- 

 tirely different viewpoint regarding the requirements 

 of the private owner than I read into the language. 



"I have approached this question of a national forest 

 policy which would include the private forest problem 

 from a somewhat different angle than Mr. Pinchot. I 

 have approached it from the standpoint of utilizing our 

 State machinery already in existence in a good many of 

 our States, and using State authority for carrying out 

 necessary measures in securing a sound system of taxa- 

 tion, and using the State's police power in imposing 

 such requirements upon private owners as may be neces- 

 sary in carrying out such a program. 



"The ideas that I had worked out while I was in charge 

 of the Forest Service are similar in this general frame- 

 work to the bill before you. The first two sections of 

 the bill which relate to the private lands do not, how- 

 ever, in my opinion, give the assurance of the practice of 

 forestry which would justify the large expenditures 

 called for, or enable one to give assurance to the public 

 that the results aimed at by this measure will be secured. 



"The requirements of what the private owners have 

 to do, of course, differ under different conditions, but the 

 point is that under this legislation there would be a great 

 many owners who would not use the methods which are 

 essential for adequate protection of the forests or for 

 adequate perpetuation, and my idea is that they should be 



