

K< iREST SKR\ [CE 



53 



Forest Service, will be the supervisor 

 in charge of the new fniv>t; he i; 

 left Washington for Fort Smith, 

 where he will establish headquarters. 

 Mr. Record is a trained forester, and 

 has practical knowledge of the forest 

 conditions in the \\e-t hy reason of 

 four years' held work in the Ozark 

 region of Missouri, in Montana, 

 Michi-an. several States of the mid- 

 dle West, and finally in Arkansas, 

 where he made a working plan in 

 [906, for 70.000 acres of pine forest, 

 and later made examination of the 

 land and recommendation for the 

 withdrawal of the area now included 

 in the new Arkansas forest. 



Arkansas 



Forest 



Resources 



Arkansas has always 

 been rich in forest re- 

 sources. Originally the 

 entire State was clothed with forests 

 with the exception of about 900 square 

 miles. The entire area of the State is 

 53.850 square miles. Fully 80 per cent 

 of its area remains in woodland, of 

 which two-thirds are commercial for- 

 est. This places Arkansas among the 

 most heavily timbered States, and 

 makes it the center of unusual activ- 

 ity in the lumber business. 



The total amount of standing tim- 

 ber in the State is approximately 100 

 "billion feet, of which pine comprises 

 20 billion. The total cut for the year 

 1906 was nearly 2 billion feet, the 

 largest in the history of the State. At 

 this rate fifty years will be required to 

 cut off all the timber, assuming that 

 the factor of growth will be offset by 

 deterioration and waste. In all proba- 

 bility the rate of cutting will increase 

 so materially that the available supply 

 will be largely exhausted in less than 

 twenty years. If present methods are 

 continued, ni; >-t of this forest land will 

 become barren and unproductive: if 

 properly managed, it will play an im- 

 portant part in the future prosperity 

 of the State. 



A particularly favorable fact in con- 



nection with the Arkai National 



!'< irest i- found in the hearty -pirii 

 co-operation manifested by the \rkan- 

 sas people, who apparently .i/- 



ing the immense benefit- which are to 

 be conferred in the vation of the 



timber supplies there, have -ed 



the incoming of the Forest Ser. 

 a ^alutary event and assisted the ' 

 eminent officials with helpful su 

 tioiis. 



Mississippi Fires are very common 



y? 11 ,^. throughout the re-ion in 



Conditions , . , , . . .. 



which the Arkansas For- 

 est is located. The forest will be put 

 under administration at once, and with 

 a competent ranger force and proper 

 co-operation on the part of the settlers 

 living within the boundaries of the 

 forest, the fires can be soon be brought 

 under control. In the "West, where 

 practically all of the National Forests 

 are located, it has been shown-that fire 

 can be reduced to a point where tin- 

 loss is utterlv insignificant, through 



/ o 



the system of patrol which is an im- 

 portant part of the forest administra- 

 tion. 



The creation of the Arkansas Na- 

 tional Forest has brought a relatively 

 small area of the immense forest area 

 of the Mississippi Valley under practi- 

 cal forest administration. As an ob- 

 ject-lesson as to what can be done in 

 the way of conservative lumbering, tin- 

 forest will be of great interest to lum- 

 bermen in the Mississippi Valley, and 

 it is hoped that the large area- in pri- 

 vate hands will be managed on -trict 

 forestry principle- when the practical 

 results of government administration 

 < if this fore-t are seen. 



The recent additions in California. 

 Ari/ona. Nevada, and \rl-an-a- br 

 the total area of the National F 

 of the country, including V Mid 



Porto Rico, up to about i' K> 



The \laska f >r< re over 



u.ooo.OOO. and the one in I'orto R ; 

 about oo.,x)O. 



