FIRE PROTECTION AND NEW PUBLIC FOREST LAND 



527 



all familiar with the old story of local timber depletion 

 and the depressing influence which it exercises on the 

 economic and industrial life of the entire region. I 

 am not an alarmist, but I should fail to perform my 

 plain duty as President of the American Forestry Asso- 

 ciation were I not to tell you frankly that we shall in 

 no remote future find ourselves in a decidedly uncom- 

 fortable, not to say critical, situation unless we put our 

 idle forest lands to work. 



"The pity of it all is that our present failure to per- 

 petuate our forests is so unnecessary. We have ample 

 areas of lands not better suited for other purposes to 

 make ourselves indefinitely self-supporting in the mat- 

 ter of our requirements for forest products. All that we 

 need is to handle them properly. Many factors, of 

 course, enter into the problem of producing the maxi- 

 mum supply of wood and of utilizing it in such a way 

 as to insure continuity of industry. Questions of taxa- 

 tion, insurance, silviculture, forest management, and 

 wood utilization, are all involved, but more important 

 than any of these in our present stage of development 

 is the problem of fire protection. According to Colonel 

 Greeley, adequate fire protection would solve 75 per 

 cent of the difficulties by which we are now confronted 

 in attempting to keep our forest lands productive. A 

 large part of the other 25 per cent involves the practice 

 of correct silviculture, and it is only reasonable that in 

 co-operating with the States the Forest Service should 

 be authorized to insist, as a basis for financial assist- 

 ance, upon the passage of State legislation making it 

 possible to require reasonable standards in the methods 

 of cutting and utilizing the forest and of disposing of 

 the slashings, wherever these are important factors in 

 maintaining the productivity of the land. 



"Altogether there are some 315,000,000 acres of State 

 and privately-owned forest lands in the protection of 

 which the Federal Government should co-operate. At 

 present more than one-half of this area is almost wholly 

 unprotected, and of the remainder existing protection is 

 to a considerable extent far from adequate. If these 

 lands are to be kept productive there must be a tremen- 

 dous expansion in our present fire protection activities 

 on the part of all of the three principal agencies con- 

 cerned the Federal Government, the States, and the 

 private owners. The first point of expansion is the 

 passage of legislation authorizing the Federal Govern- 

 ment to spend a million dollars a year for this and 

 related purposes in co-operation with the individual 

 States. Obviously State legislation along similar lines 

 is essential and should go hand in hand with Federal 

 legislation. Prompt passage of the latter is highly 

 desirable since it would undoubtedly prove the most 

 effective stimulus possible for State action, not only 

 because of the moral effect of a good example, but 

 because such action would be necessary to enable the 

 States to take advantage of the offer of Federal funds 

 to supplement their own appropriations. 



"Fire protection should be accompanied by a marked 

 increase in the extent of publicly owned forests. The 



purchase of lands by the Federal Government which 

 was initiated in 1911 under the Weeks Law should be 

 continued with an annual appropriation of not less than 

 $2,000,000. As in the case of fire protection, present 

 restrictions on the use of this appropriation only on the 

 watersheds of navigable streams should be removed and 

 the Forest Service permitted to purchase other forest 

 lands in cases where this may be advisable. Primary 

 emphasis should, of course be laid on completing the 

 original program for the protection of the watersheds of 

 navigable streams through the acquisition of about one 

 million acres in New England and about five million 

 acres in the Southern Appalachians; but in addition to 

 this the Government should acquire forest lands in all 

 the principal forest regions where areas suitable for 

 Federal management can be obtained. The extension of 

 National holdings in this way is sound public policy 

 because it makes possible the consolidation of existing 

 holdings, because such areas serve as models to be fol- 

 lowed by private owners in the management of their 

 lands, and because to a very considerable extent the 

 growing of large-size timber will undoubtedly come to 

 be more and more a public function. 



"At present about one-fifth of the forest land of the 

 country is publicly-owned, mainly by the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. The Chief Forester has expressed himself as 

 in favor of the extension of such ownership until the 

 public owns half of the timber-growing land in the 

 United States well distributed throughout the principal 

 forest regions. Without attempting to pass upon the 

 exact per cent which should eventually be acquired by 

 the public, I think we can all agree that every encourage- 

 ment should be given to the States, and municipalities 

 to acquire forest land and that the Federal Government 

 must take the lead in this respect. It goes without say- 

 ing that in all Federal acquisition local communities 

 should be equitably compensated in some way for the 

 tax returns of which they are deprived when the Gov- 

 ernment takes over the land. 



"So far the National Forest Reservation Commission 

 has approved for purchase under the Weeks Law nearly 

 2,000,000 acres of forest land at an expenditure averag- 

 ing approximately $5.30 per acre. Not only have these 

 lands proved to be a good investment from the stand- 

 point of watershed protection, the primary purpose for 

 which they were acquired, but they have also demon- 

 strated that financially they will be an excellent invest- 

 ment. Moreover, from the broader standpoint of the 

 National welfare as a whole, it must be recognized that 

 under present conditions Government ownership is prac- 

 tically the only effective means for preventing the ex- 

 haustion of old growth timber of high quality and for 

 restocking many denuded areas. There is every reason 

 why the program of Government purchases, which has 

 been interrupted by the failure of Congress to appro- 

 priate funds for the purpose, should be renewed on a 

 still larger scale than before. Two million dollars a 

 year is certainly a sufficiently modest sum to set aside 



