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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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VOL. XXVI 



MARCH 1920 



NO. 315 



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EDITORIAL 



A DECADE OF PROGRESS IN THE FOREST SERVICE 



rIE retirement of Colonel Henry S. Graves as head 

 of the Forest Service is a fitting occasion to review 

 the progress which has been made during the ten 

 years in which he has so admirably directed the forest 

 activities of the National Government. It is a decade 

 during which the Forest Service has settled into its stride. 

 Prior to 1910, its efforts of necessity were concentrated 

 largely upon the creation of the National Forests as a 

 first step in conservation, upon building a secure founda- 

 tion under them in public 

 support, and upon blocking 

 out the main lines for their 

 development toward the 

 maximum national service. 

 Colonel Graves' administra- 

 tion, in its development of 

 business methods, enlarged 

 usefulness, and the appli- 

 cation of technical forestry 

 to management problems, 

 may be summed up as a 

 transformation of forest 

 reserves into permanent 

 National Forests. 



During this period the 

 gigantic task of classifying 

 the lands embraced in the 

 National Forests has been 

 nearly completed. Large 

 areas of agricultural land 

 have been segregated and 

 opened to settlement, insuring the permanent use of the 

 remaining land for forest production as a public enter- 

 prise. A comprehensive policy for developing the 

 National Forests by road building has been entered upon 

 and carried forward, with the recognition and support 

 of Congress through appropriations totaling $19,000,000. 

 The last ten years have brought several seasons of ex- 

 ceptional and extreme fire hazard and have given the 

 Forest Service a task in organized fire protection not 

 paralleled in the history of the world. The emphasis 

 given to the development of fire protection organization 

 and methods and the unremitting study devoted to every 

 phase of this great problem represent today one of the 

 greatest assets not only of the Forest Service, but of the 



COLONEL GRAVES RESIGNS 



On March 8 announcement was made that, after ten 

 years of service as Chief Forester of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, Colonel Henry S. Graves had 

 notified the Secretary of Agriculture that he intends to 

 ask to be relieved of his position. He expects to leave the 

 service about May 1. 



"Since the pecuniary returns afforded professional and 

 scientific men in the Government service inadequately 

 provide against the exhaustion of the working powers 

 which must inevitably take place in time, and entail sacri- 

 fices from which employment elsewhere is free," Colonel 

 Graves wrote, "the only course consistent alike with self- 

 respect and a regard for th? public interests seems to me 

 to be retirement from o..c before efficiency has been 

 impaired. Present condition, which amount to a heavy 

 reduction in the rate of compensation in practically every 

 branch of the Governji'.nt service, emphasizes this point 

 of view." 



Resignation of Albert F. Potter as Associate Chief of the 

 Forest Service was also announced. Mr. Potter, in asking 

 that his resignation be made effective on April 15, says he 

 feels that "the time has now arrived when I should retire 

 from the Government service and give my attention to 

 private interests." 



United States, with the increasing recognition of the 

 vital importance of stopping forest losses from fire. 



The use of the National Forests by the public has 

 been vastly increased. The number of timber sales has 

 much more than doubled and now exceeds 12,500 sales 

 annually. The yearly cut of timber has nearly doubled. 

 There has been a material increase in the use of the 

 forage on the National Forests, a use now shared bv 

 nearly 40,000 farmers and stock-growers. The annual 



receipts from the National 

 Forests have more than 

 doubled and are now close 

 to four and one-quarter 

 million dollars. Not alone, 

 however, in their economic 

 phases has the value of the 

 National Forests as a pub- 

 lic enterprise been demon- 

 started. The thousands of 

 summer homes and camps 

 now occupied and enjoyed 

 every year and the hun- 

 dreds of thousands of 

 campers and visitors who 

 flock to the National For- 

 ests testify to the enormous 

 public value of these 

 national holdings as a 

 source of health and rec- 

 reation to the people. 

 One of the most signifi- 

 cant and forward-looking steps which has been taken and 

 for which the American Forestry Association may fairly 

 claim a measure of credit is the enactment of the Weeks 

 Act, under which it has been possible to extend the 

 National Forests into the Eastern States and make a 

 large advance in the protection of the watersheds of 

 important navigable streams. The purchase of nearly 

 two million acres of mountain forests has been com- 

 pleted by the National Forest Reservation Commission 

 and these areas are today under administration as 

 National Forests, with all their varied forms of public 

 service. Under the same law a definite policy has been 

 inaugurated of Federal co-operation with the States in 

 the protection of forested watersheds from fire which 



