PROGRESS OF LAND CLASSIFICATION IN NAT'L FORESTS 13 



by the Forest Service. On the other hand, in parts of Arizona 

 and New Mexico, where there are vast areas of grazing land 

 and but little hay land, the clearing of timber land even in a 

 relatively non-timbered region may be good economics if water 

 for irrigation is available and the hay produced on the area has 

 a special value as a form of livestock insurance, being accum- 

 ulated from year to year during the good years and kept to 

 carry through the occasional bad winter a large herd of cattle 

 that ordinarily run on the range satisfactorily the year long. 

 But the timber land that may justify an agricultural classifica- 

 tion under irrigation may be valuable only for its timber if 

 water for irrigation is not available. In the first instance it 

 may represent an annual production of 4 to 8 tons of alfalfa 

 per acre, while on a dry farm basis it may represent an annual 

 production of from half a ton to a ton of grain hay per acre, 

 a return so scanty in comparison with the labor and expense of 

 cultivation, seed, etc., that it is undertaken only where the 

 crop has unusual value on account of its location and the land 

 does not require any expensive preparation such as clearing. 



In this way it has been necessary in every region to make a 

 thorough study of the fundamentals of farm and forest eco- 

 nomics peculiar to the region preliminary to the actual ap- 

 proval of any classification. Based upon such study, certain 

 broad rules have been formulated as a general guide to be ob- 

 served in that region. Perhaps the best known example of 

 such a rule was the rule put into effect on certain lands along 

 the Kootenai River in Montana, where under given conditions 

 National Forest land was classified as chiefly valuable for agri- 

 culture and opened to settlement under the Forest Homestead 

 Act if it did not carry a stand to exceed 4,000 feet B. M. of 

 merchantable saw timber per acre. This rule was merely the 

 concrete expression of the result of a very careful study of 

 economic conditions in that particular region which showed 

 such a relation existing between farm and forest values that in 

 this given region land having certain characteristics of soil, 

 climate, topography, and accessibility, would usually be de- 

 veloped for agricultural purposes if it had less than 4,000 feet 

 B. M. of merchantable saw timber per acre, while if it had 

 more than that amount the odds were in favor of it being held 



