THE NATIONAL FOREST ENTERPRISES 



751 



" But the most serious objection to the bill is that it 

 subjects the national forests to disposition under a general 

 grant. At the very time while provision is being made for 

 purchase by the Government of forested lands in the East 

 for the protection of watersheds it is proposed to permit 

 similar lands in the West to be permanently alienated. 

 I would respectfully urge that it is unwise to permit alien- 

 ation of the national forests under general legislation of 

 this sort. If the process of piecemeal distribution is 

 begun, independently of any oversight or control of the 

 National Government, there is manifest danger that the 

 forests will be so disintegrated as to make their efficient 

 administration impossible and the purposes for which they 

 were established unattainable. Against such a process the 

 national forests should be carefully protected." 



The use of the national forests for recreation purposes 

 continues to extend. Thousands of local recreation 

 centres, public picnic and camping grounds, excursion 

 points, and amusement resorts are being developed. Some 

 of the areas, located near enough to cities and towns to 

 be reached by considerable numbers of persons, serve 

 already the purposes of municipal recreation grounds and 

 public parks. To meet local needs along this line, the 

 department is cooperating with municipalities. These 

 forms of public service can be rendered without difficulty 

 in connection with the fulfilment of the general purposes 

 of the forests. 



National Forests and National Parks 



The handling of the national forest recreation re- 

 sources inevitably raises the question of the relation of 

 the national forests and the national parks. At present 

 there is no clear distinction in the public mind between the 

 two. Both are administered for the benefit of the public 

 along lines which overlap. The parks and forests occur 

 side by side and have the same general characteristics 

 extensive areas of wild and rugged lands, for the most 

 part timbered, with development conditioned upon road 

 construction and similar provisions for public use. They 

 differ chiefly in the fact that the attractions of the national 

 parks from the recreational standpoint are more notable. 

 Yet this is not always true. Several of the parks are 

 inferior in their natural features to portions of the forests. 

 The need of drawing a clear distinction between national 

 parks and national forests and of a definite policy govern- 

 ing their relation is increasingly evident. Parks are being 

 advocated where the land should stay in the forests, while 

 elsewhere areas which should be made parks continue to 

 be administered as forests for example, the Grand 

 Canyon of the Colorado. 



A national park should be created only where there 

 are scenic features of such outstanding importance for 

 beauty or as natural marvels that they merit national 

 recognition and protection and, on this account, have a 

 public value transcending that of any material resources 

 on the same land such areas, for example, as those now 

 comprised in the Yellowstone and Yosemite Parks and in 

 the Grand Canyon National Monument. The areas 

 should be large enough to justify administration separate 



from the forests and the boundaries drawn so as not to 

 include timber, grazing, or other resources the economic 

 use of which is essential to the upbuilding and industrial 

 welfare of the country. In addition, when parks are 

 created from parts of the forests, the portions remaining 

 as forests should not be left in a form difficult or impos- 

 sible to administer. 



Clear-cut Policy Necessary 



The importance of a clear-cut policy is evidenced by 

 the efforts frequently made to secure the creation of 

 national parks out of areas containing great bodies of 

 timber, extensive grazing lands, and other resources, the 

 withdrawal of which from use would be uneconomic and 

 prejudicial to the local and general public interest. In 

 most cases the desire for a specific park, where economic 

 use of the resources also is essential, has led to the pro- 

 posal for an administration of the area, after the creation 

 of the park, identical with the present forest administra- 

 tion. Several such measures now are before Congress. 

 Their enactment would result in a mere division of the 

 public properties into parks and forests, having no dis- 

 tinction except in name ; handled alike but by duplicate 

 organizations in different departments. Still more serious 

 is the fact that the cutting up of the forests would greatly 

 cripple administration of the remaining lands. It would 

 doubtless mean the abandonment of large areas which 

 should remain under public ownership and control for 

 timber production and watershed protection. It would 

 greatly reduce efficiency in forest fire protection and in 

 the handling of current business, increase the expense of 

 protection and administration, and cause endless confusion 

 to users, who in many cases would have to deal with two 

 departments in developing resources when, for instance, 

 logging and grazing units overlap. 



The protection of the scenic features and the develop- 

 ment of the recreational use of the lands are being taken 

 care of in the national forests. Some of the most unusual 

 scenic areas in the forests are best suited to a full park 

 administration. The bulk of the forest areas, however, 

 should continue in their present status, where they will 

 be fully protected and developed for recreation purposes 

 as a part of the forest administration. The extensive road 

 building, made possible by the $10,000,000 recently appro- 

 priated, will open them up rapidly. 



An added cause of confusion is the fact that national 

 parks and national forests are administered by two execu- 

 tive departments. While there is an effort to cooperate, 

 nevertheless difficulties arise which could be wholly 

 avoided if they were under one department. Unques- 

 tionably the administration of the forests should remain 

 in the Department of Agriculture, because of the close 

 relationship of the work of the Forest Service to the 

 activities of other bureaus of the same department, such 

 as the Bureau of Plant Industry, Bureau of Animal In- 

 dustry, Office of Public Roads and Rural Engineering, 

 Bureau of Soils, Bureau of Biological Survey, and the 

 Bureau of Entomology. Obviously, there are in the 



