88 l-OREST REGULATION 



7. National Forests. The object as expressed in the original 

 laws was to protect and preserve the forest and affect the water 

 distribution in the mountains of the West. Today the object has 

 taken the form of a well defined policy closely patterned after that 

 of State forests of Europe. This policy has been put into practice 

 and the National Forest Service today is the only organization in 

 the United States practicing Forestry in the most approved, up-to- 

 date manner. It has gathered 90% and more of all needed forest 

 information and has developed Working Plans, notably in the direc- 

 tion of Forest Protection, unequalled anywhere. But the National 

 Forests cover a large range of country, with great diversity of 

 climate, topography, market, etc. In keeping, the objects of manage- 

 ment vary for different forests. On the Angeles in Southern Cali- 

 fornia where a chaparral is all that has been able to maintain itself 

 as cover, the object is one of protection of this cover, though its 

 value is only in water regulation and not in timber. On the Targhee 

 where a high mountain country is covered with tracts of Lodge 

 Pole and areas of grass lands, a proper protection and use of both 

 of these is the object, and the forester becomes interested in Range 

 problems as well as silviculture and logging. On the Snoqualmie 

 protection and utilization of the great mass of standing timber and 

 proper silviculture or method of cutting the old and growing a new 

 crop of timber where old stands are removed is the object of man- 

 agement and the forester here, like the forester of Germany, is first 

 and last a timber farmer. 



C. CHOICE OF SPECIES. 



Right choice of crop is important on the farm, and ten times 

 more so in the forest, where acorns planted today make a forest to 

 be harvested in 200 years hence. 



a. In most cases, where we begin with wild woods, the species 

 tm the ground are kept. But even here there is often a choice as to 

 which to favor, and which to suppress or eliminate. In the Spruce 

 and hardwood forests of New England and the Adirondacks the 

 Spruce is the most valuable tree and is favored ; the same is true of 

 White and Norway Pine in the Lake Region, Longleaf, Loblolly and 



