36 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



permit. My visit to the Forests last summer convinced 

 me that there should be provision for the acquirement 

 of title to such sites under reasonable conditions. The 

 recommendation has been made at various times that 

 the trades and manufactures act be extended to the 

 Forests. I would not advocate the extension of that act 

 exactly as it stands, but I believe that there should be 

 authority for the Secretary of Agriculture to sell sites 

 useful for trades, manufacturing, and special uses, after 

 examination and appraisal of them, but only such sites 

 as are not 

 chiefly suitable 

 for timber, 

 water power, 

 and medicinal 

 springs, or are 

 not needed for 

 public purposes 

 and general 

 public uses. 



ADMINISTRA- 

 TION 



The National 

 Forests of 

 Alaska pav 

 their way. Dur- 

 ing the past 

 five years the 

 receipts from 

 sales of timber 

 and other 

 sources have 

 aggregated 



A FOREST RANGER'S CAMP IN WINTER 



A great deal of the work of exploration in the forests of Alaska is done in the winter. This is par- 

 ticularly true in those portions where swamps, streams, and muskegs make summer travel slow and 

 difficult. The Forest Service has already done a great deal of reconnaissance work in the winter, 

 with the aid of the dog sled. 



SJ ti,:J()5).,*iO ; the expenditures have amounted to $207.- 

 599.86. There has thus been a surplus during that period 

 cf $34,769.44. 



The administration of the Alaskan Forests is decen- 

 tralized to a high degree. Very large authority is dele- 

 gated to the local officers in order to avoid delays in 

 transacting business which are incident to a centralized 

 handling of the work in Washington. Aside from mat- 

 ters pertaining to alienation of Government land, more 

 than 98 per cent of the Forest business is handled by the 

 local force, only the largest timber sales, water power 

 permits, and questions of policy being referred to the 

 Washington office. 



EFFORTS TO ABOLISH THE ALASKAN FORESTS 



The Alaskan Forests have been a storm center of public 

 controversy for a number of years. The coal land contro- 

 versy of 1910 was started because attention was called 

 to an attempt illegally to secure title to certain coal 

 claims, some of which were on the Chugach Forest. 

 The existence of the National Forest did not affect the 

 validity of the claims, for the law for acquiring coal 

 lands was exactly the same on the Forest as on the 

 pjhlic domain outside. The Forest Service was brought 



into the matter through its insistence that the mining 

 laws be complied with on the National Forests before 

 patent is issued. Many of these coal claims were finally 

 rejected because there had not been a compliance with 

 the law, not because a few of them were within the 

 boundaries of the Chugach National Forest. Yet the 

 impression has been spread abroad that in some way the 

 Alaskan National Forests have interfered with the open- 

 ing up of the coal fields, and this impression has been 

 the basis for a great deal of hostile sentiment against the 



existence of 

 the National 

 Forests. The 

 Chugach again 

 became a sub- 

 ject of public 

 controversy in 

 1911, when an 

 elimination of 

 about 13,000 

 was made at 

 Co n t r o 1 1 e r 

 Bay. This 

 elimination re- 

 sulted in pass- 

 ing to private 

 ownership a 

 strategic loca- 

 tion for a rail- 

 road terminal. 

 Chugach For- 

 est is now once 

 more coming 

 into promi- 

 nence on ac- 

 count of the efforts to secure its entire abolishment and 

 the throwing open of the land to general entry. The 

 abolishment of either of the Alaskan Forests would be 

 a very serious step backward; it would be a direct blow 

 at the whole National Forest system, and an entering 

 wedge to undo what has already been accomplished in 

 public forestry. 



The reasons for the continuance of the two Alaskan 

 National Forests and their retention under National 

 Forest administration are the same that underlay their 

 establishment ui the. first place and the establishment 

 of the NationarF*rests in the States. A statement of 

 these reasons would involve a description of the inci- 

 dents which led up to the establishment of the National 

 Forests, the depredations and frauds connected with the 

 public forests before the establishment of the National 

 Forests, the failure of private ownership to protect th^ 

 interests which the public has in the good management 

 of forests, the retarding influence of speculative owner- 

 ship of timberlands on the development of agriculture, 

 mining and other local resources, and the failure of pri- 

 vate owners to protect their property or to provide for 

 the perpetuation of the forests after cutting off the 

 timber. 



