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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1132 



privately owned or else in the public 

 domain open to sale or settlement. Fortu- 

 nately, in the United States, when the 

 policy of the public ownership of forest 

 property was accepted, there were still 

 large areas of public domain covered with 

 timber from which national forests could 

 be segregated without cost to the republic. 

 Unfortunately these areas were chiefly in 

 the western half of the country, conse- 

 quently the national forests are, for the 

 most part, located in the states west of 

 the Mississippi River and remote from the 

 best timber markets. 



It is invariably the case that nations do 

 not awaken to the need for forest conserva- 

 tion until too late to attain the best results 

 without large expenditures of time and 

 money. Thus, the United States in order 

 to secure national forests in the eastern 

 half of the country, where there is the great- 

 est need for forest conservation and the 

 orderly development of forest property, is 

 forced to purchase from private owners 

 timberland that never should have passed 

 from public ownership. 



The segregation of the national forests 

 from the public domain during the past 

 two decades has given us 162 national for- 

 ests, having a total area of nearly 165 mill- 

 ion acres. The more recent policy of pur- 

 chasing timberland from private owners 

 for national forests in the east has already 

 resulted in the acquiring of nearly 386,000 

 acres in seven of the eastern states. About 

 900,000 acres additional have been ap- 

 proved for purchase. The fixed policy of 

 the government relating to the manage- 

 ment of the vast acreage in national forests 

 is conservation through use, i. e., the treat- 

 ment of the property so that the yield will 

 increase rather than decrease with use. 



During the same period that the national 

 government has been creating, organizing 

 and developing national forests the state 



governments have been creating, organizing 

 and developing state forests. At the pres- 

 ent time, 14 states have a total of 147 state 

 forests, which embrace an area of nearly 

 3,675,000 acres. New York with two large 

 state forests of 1,825,882 acres leads all 

 other states in the extent of her state-owned 

 forests. Pennsylvania with 50 state forests 

 of nearly 1,000,000 acres has done much 

 more than the other states in the organiza- 

 tion and development of them. 



Counties, cities and towns have secured, 

 chiefly within the past decade, communal 

 forests varying from less than 100 acres in 

 extent to more than 20,000 acres. Complete 

 data relating to communal forests in the 

 United States is not available. The states 

 having the largest number of such forests 

 are Massachusetts and New York. It is be- 

 lieved that there are, at the present time, 

 from 200,000 to 300,000 acres of communal 

 forests in the United States. These forests 

 have, for the most part, been acquired for 

 the purpose of protecting the watersheds 

 from which potable water is obtained for 

 the use of cities and towns. They are usu- 

 ally located in the vicinity of large centers 

 of population where there is a demand for 

 all classes of forest products, thus making 

 the practise of intensive forestry possible. 



The most interesting and far-reaching 

 movement in forestry in the United States 

 has been this movement toward public 

 ownership of forest property. Approxi- 

 mately one fifth of the total area of the 

 forests in the United States has been made 

 into national, state and communal forests 

 in the space of twenty years. The public 

 has squarely faced the issue of forest con- 

 servation and has recognized the fact that 

 it is not possible without the public owner- 

 ship of forest property. Our forest policy 

 is firmly anchored on the rock of public 

 ownership that our forest resources can be 

 made to continue indefinitely and not be- 



