RECREATION IN THE FORESTS 



271 



A TENT CAMP IN THE SHOSHONE NATIONAL FOREST 

 Scores of these residential units are springing up in the Forests everywhere. 



health as well. Recreation of excellent grade is neces- 

 sary in maintaining both. Recreation can become one 

 of the greatest returns from the forests of our country. 

 And because it is a human use, producing mental and 

 physical health, the recreational use of forest land will 

 always take place among the highest of all uses. 



There are today over 150,000,000 acres of National 

 Forests in the United States, and the future will see many 

 acres of forest land now privately owned transferred to 

 the hands of the State, county or town. The recreational 

 reserve in these lands is by far the greatest known. Per- 

 haps the next largest recreational land group in the 

 world is our own National Parks of the United States. 

 But they represent less than one-twentieth of the terri- 

 tory in the National Forests 

 alone, and if all other forest 

 lands were included the ratio 

 would be even more astounding. 

 It is to the great forest lands of 

 the nation that the people will 

 ultimately have to turn to find 

 the outdoor recreation that they 

 crave. And it is foolish not to 

 realize on this great utility of 

 the forests, for it is a return 

 added to the economic uses now 

 established without any detrac- 

 tion from their value. While the 

 recreation feature cannot be so 

 accurately measured and tabu- 

 lated as the others because they 

 always have an established mar- 

 ket where money figures are 

 quoted, the recreation return 

 from forest lands will annually 

 amount to many million dollars 

 and the return in good health, 



better, keener thinking and en- 

 joyment of the aesthetic qualities 

 found in the forest will add 

 wealth to the nation that cannot 

 be accurately estimated! 



It would seem that this utility 

 is almost unlimited. But the 

 nation at one time thought the 

 farm lands of the Middle West 

 so great in extent that they 

 would never be fully developed. 

 Time and again this idea of a 

 resource being inexhaustible has 

 gone glimmering when the limits 

 of that resource came glaringly 

 to light. And so it will be in the 

 case of the recreational resource 

 of the forests unless they are 

 rightfully planned. One mis- 

 placed cabin in a forest, one illy 

 planned camp can affect the 

 recreational use of a whole re- 

 gion to such an extent that peo- 

 ple will go to less desirable places where the planning 

 is good. 



Recently the United States Forest Service has stepped 

 in the right direction. The technical training of the 

 man that is to plan forest areas for recreation should 

 receive as much consideration as the case of the man 

 who handles the law cases in forests, or the grazing man, 

 or the mine expert, or the forester in silviculture. The 

 courses in school that best fits the man for this work 

 is landscape architecture. It is not the perfect course 

 for such a man, but it is the best by far that is 

 available. And the requirements of a recreational engi- 

 neer of the Forest Service is that the man must hold a 

 degree in some landscape course of a recognized school. 



A LOVELY SPOT IN MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY 

 Forests in the mountain land of the Western States contain multitudes of little lakes such as this. 



